“Frequency and extremity of flood events (in Malaysia) have increased in recent decades with projections they could increase with continued global warming,” said the report which was released in 2021. 

There is concern among mental health experts in Malaysia that there will be more flood victims, who will in turn show symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Such cases could start with depression and anxiety. Eventually, there may be more suicides. 

Mental health expert Andrew Mohanraj, who is president of the Malaysian Mental Health Association (MMHA), told CNA that those with PTSD from floods are likely to report intense feelings of anxiety, depression and paranoia.

“A person having PTSD will exhibit symptoms like being highly irritable, sometimes even violence towards others, having poor sleep, as well as feeling guilty and having a great deal of shame over what happened,” said Mohanraj.

“And then of course, unfortunately, in trying to cope with this then the person might tend to resort to maladaptive coping strategies, like abusing substances such as sleeping medication and alcohol. And, sadly, in some cases, this results in suicide as well,” he added. 

In Abdul Rahman’s case, he was referred to counsellors from the Ministry of Health and underwent weekly tests to monitor his trauma level. 

“When the sky gets dark and I hear thunder, my stomach would sink. I have never been afraid of heavy rain like how I feel now,” he told CNA. 

Rohini Krishnan, a counsellor from Meraky Counselling Services who has treated flood victims in Kedah, suggested that Abdul Rahman’s trauma level is likely to be high given the magnitude of grief and bereavement from the incident. 

“The loss of loved ones will definitely exacerbate the impact of the trauma on the individual … because it’s something much, much more than loss of property and valuables,” she said. 

“For such cases, the person might be at level eight or nine or even 10 (out of a scale of 10). Counsellors need to sit down (with him) and do a lot of processing and uncovering to help in recovery,” she added. 

Last month, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said that Malaysia saw an 81 per cent increase in suicide cases overall in 2021, with 1,142 cases reported last year as compared to 631 cases in 2020. He noted that a main cause for this was mental health issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

BANGKOK: Authorities in Thailand warned on Wednesday (Oct 5) of possible serious flooding in the capital and other parts of the central region from heavy seasonal rainfall expected through the rest of the week.

The situation is being worsened by a large volume of water moving downriver from flooding in northern provinces and from discharges from dams filled to capacity.

Bangkok has been experiencing flooding since Monday as torrential rain poured into the city, with about 16cm recorded in one area over 24 hours. However, the flooding had eased in most areas by Wednesday morning.

City officials said they are taking several measures to cope with the flooding, including placing sandbags along riverbanks, preparing water pumps at drainage tunnels, and having military trucks on standby to transport commuters.

Bangkok Deputy Governor Tawida Kamolvej said if rainfall levels are high in coming days, many areas will be vulnerable because it would take hours to drain water into the already swollen Chao Phraya River that runs through the city.

“If traveling to and from work will be difficult, we would ask companies and agencies to be flexible about working hours, or if possible, to consider working from home to help reduce traffic congestion,” Tawida said at a news conference.

KUALA LUMPUR: Close to 77,000 staff members of various agencies are fully prepared to face the possibility of floods all over Malaysia at the end of this year, a deputy minister said. 

Madam Mastura Mohd Yazid, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, told the Lower House on Monday (Oct 3) that a preparedness task force will be meeting ahead of the north-east monsoon season.

“A total of 76,336 officers and personnel of response agencies at all levels including the district level are in a state of full readiness,” she said.

The Department of Irrigation and Drainage (JPS) has also prepared equipment such as flood warning sirens and mobile pumps, according to the minister.  

Mdm Mastura added that RM50,000 (US$10,755) was allocated to each district in the country while RM1.08 million has been channelled to eight response agencies.

She said that the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA) has allocated RM30,000 to each district for the purchase of two motorised fiberglass boats while the Department of Social Welfare has prepared 6,010 temporary relief centres that could house more than 1.6 million victims.

“The state disaster management committees and the district disaster management committees have also been instructed to prepare in advance to ensure that aid and supplies reach all involved locations,” she said, adding that this is to avoid the situation where delivery of aid is hampered by road closures. 

Hang Tuah Jaya MP Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin asked the deputy minister about the disaster management committee’s preparedness if the 15th general election were held during the floods, but it was dismissed by speaker Azhar Azizan Harun. 

“That question is speculative, so it cannot be allowed as per standing orders,” he said. 

The United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) has been calling for snap polls, but this was criticised by opposition politicians who said that emphasis should be placed on flood mitigation measures instead.

Last Friday, UMNO’s supreme council decided that parliament must be dissolved soon for GE15 to be held this year.

The rollover is related to the Paris club agreement in April 2020 to support 73 lower income countries during COVID-19, under which the US provided relief on US$128 million in debt to Pakistan.

The agreement to suspend payments on that debt, plus an additional US$4 million, has now been rolled over again.

Pakistan’s outgoing finance minister Miftah Ismail said last week that Islamabad was seeking debt relief from bilateral creditors in the wake of flooding, but emphasised the government was not seeking any relief from commercial banks or Eurobond creditors.

The country’s bonds had slumped to just half their face value, after the Financial Times newspaper said a United Nations development agency was urging the cash-strapped country to restructure its debt.

Ismail said the US$1 billion bond would be paid on time and in full due later this year.

The authors of the study however stressed that due to large variations in seasonal monsoon rainfall over Pakistan historically, it was not possible to conclude that manmade warming contributed significantly to 60-day total rainfall levels.

“What we saw in Pakistan is exactly what climate projections have been predicting for years,” said Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in Climate Science at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute.

“It’s also in line with historical records showing that heavy rainfall has dramatically increased in the region since humans started emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”

FINANCE NEEDED

Otto said while it was hard to put a precise figure on the extent to which manmade emissions drove the rainfall, “the fingerprints of global warming are evident”.

The World Meteorological Organization this week said that weather-related disasters such as Pakistan’s had increased five-fold over the last 50 years, killing 115 people each day on average.

The warning came as nations are gearing up for the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in November, where at-risk countries are demanding that rich, historic polluters compensate them for the climate-drive loss and damage already battering their economies and infrastructure.

Fahad Saeed, researcher at the Center for Climate Change and Sustainable Development in Islamabad, said the floods showed the need for richer nations to radically ramp up funding to help others adapt to climate change – another key ask at COP27.

“Pakistan must also ask developed countries to take responsibility and provide adaptation plus loss and damage support to the countries and populations bearing the brunt of climate change,” he said.

Troops were busy strengthening a dike built in front of the station, a visit to the site showed on Sunday.

“All preventive measures have been taken already to save the grid in case any flooding happens,” Syed Murtaza Ali Shah, a top district official, told Reuters on Monday.

The comment followed orders from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, reported by state broadcaster Radio Pakistan, to ensure the 500kV power station did not get flooded.

UN agencies have begun work to assess the South Asian nation’s reconstruction needs after it received 391mm of rain, or nearly 190 per cent more than the 30-year average, in July and August.

Sindh received 466 per cent more rain than average and all the flood waters pass through Dadu, a district with a population of 1.5 million, thanks to its location.

DADU, Pakistan: Authorities in southern Pakistan plan to breach the country’s Indus Highway, a key transport link, to allow water to flow and prevent flooding in the town of Dadu, officials said on Sunday (Sep 11).

Floods from a record monsoon and glacial melt in the north of Pakistan have hit 33 million people and killed at least 1,391, washing away homes, roads, railways, livestock and crops.

Pakistan estimates the cost of the damage at US$30 billion, and both the government and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres have blamed the flooding, extreme weather and resulting devastation on climate change.

There are at least three points in Dadu district where the Indus Highway is submerged, with traffic suspended for weeks, while Pakistan’s other highway connecting the north and south has also been badly hit by the flood waters.

“All the other floods hit parts of the country are going in(to) rehabilitation phase, but we are still on our toes until and unless these flood waters, hill torrents … finally pass,” Syed Murtaza Ali Shah, District Commissioner of Dadu district said on Sunday, adding this might mean breaching the highway.

UN agencies have begun work on assessing Pakistan’s needs in order to develop a post-disaster reconstruction plan after the country received 391mm of rain, or nearly 190 per cent more than the 30-year average, in July and August.

The southern province of Sindh has seen 466 per cent more rain than average and location of the Dadu district, with a population of 1.5 million, means all the flood waters pass through it.

“90 per cent of the Dadu district is inundated, Dadu town is still under threat we are trying to protect it,” Shah told Reuters, adding that the government had provided all the machinery and material required to build a dike.

More than 200 inmates from Dadu jail have been moved to Hyderabad, as the prison is situated in a depression, he added.

Guterres told reporters on Saturday that the international community needed to do more to help countries hit hardest by the effects of climate change, starting with Pakistan.

“It is difficult not to feel deeply moved to hear such detailed descriptions of tragedy,” Guterres said after landing in Sindh, according to a video released by the office of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

“Pakistan needs massive financial support. This is not a matter of generosity, it is a matter of justice.”

A video released by Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb showed Guterres seated next to Sharif viewing flood-damaged areas from an aircraft window. “Unimaginable,” Guterres said, surveying the damage.

In July and August, Pakistan got 391mm of rain, or nearly 190 per cent more than the 30-year average. The southern province of Sindh has seen 466 per cent more rain than average.

Guterres said on Saturday the world needed to understand the impact of climate change on low-income countries.

“Humanity has been waging war on nature and nature strikes back,” he said.

“Nature strikes back in Sindh, but it was not Sindh that has made the emissions of greenhouse gases that have accelerated climate change so dramatically,” Guterres said. “There is a very unfair situation relative to the level of destruction.”

“Their homes and belongings are so precious to them,” said one serviceman, who asked not to be named, looking out at the expanse of water.

“When I joined the navy, I could never have imagined doing this,” he added.

Engine cut, the boat navigates slowly through the tops of trees, and heads duck under power lines ahead of a hamlet of crumbling houses encircled by water.

“HOW CAN WE LEAVE?”

This time, dozens of people are waiting.

Many still refuse to leave their homes, concerned their livestock – all that they have left – will be stolen or will die, and fearing a worse situation at the makeshift relief camps that have sprung up all over the country.

“Our life and death is linked with our village, how can we leave?” said Aseer Ali, knee-deep in water, refusing to let his wife, who is eight months pregnant, evacuate.

Some relent – men with fever, toddlers with diarrhoea, and an elderly woman silent in her anguish – are among those helped onto the boat that carries double its capacity on a weighed-down journey back to the city.

Among them is a young mother who had only recently lost her newborn when the water rose around her home last week.

She sways dizzily from the effects of heat stroke, her two-year-old child also distressed by the burning midday sun – both repeatedly drenched in water by a navy serviceman.

IMMENSE NEED

A new 10km mud embankment has so far held back the flood from Mehar city, with a population of hundreds of thousands.

But the city has swelled with displaced victims who over the past three weeks have fled to makeshift camps in car parks, schools and on motorways.

“More families keep arriving at the camp. They are in a terrible condition,” Muhammad Iqbal, from the Alkhidmat Foundation – a Pakistan-based humanitarian organisation that is the only welfare presence at the city’s largest camp, which hosts about 400 people.

“There is an immense need for drinking water and toilet facilities,” he added, but they may have to wait longer – the government’s priority is to drain the flooded areas.

Pressure has heaped on swollen dams and reservoirs, forcing engineers to make intentional breaches to save densely populated areas at the cost of worsening the situation in the countryside.

“They all have gone all out to protect the city but not the poor people of the rural areas,” said Umaida Solangi, a 30-year-old perched with her children on a wooden bed at a city camp.

Pakistan receives heavy – often destructive – rains during its annual monsoon season, which are crucial for agriculture and water supplies.

But a downpour as intense as this year’s not been seen for decades, and Pakistan officials blame climate change, which is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather around the world.

Pakistan is responsible for less than 1 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but is eighth on a list compiled by the non-governmental organisation, Germanwatch, of countries deemed most vulnerable to extreme weather caused by climate change.

TENTS AND TARPAULINS NEEDED

A flood relief plan scaled by the Pakistan government and UN last month called for an immediate US$160 million in international funding, and aid is already arriving.

On Thursday, a United States Air Force C-17 landed – the first American military plane in Pakistan for years – bringing desperately needed tents and tarpaulins for temporary shelter.

While Washington is a key supplier of military hardware to Islamabad, relations have been fractious as a result of conflicting interests in neighbouring Afghanistan – especially since the Taliban returned to power there in August last year.

The meteorological office says Pakistan received five times more rain than normal in 2022 – Padidan, a small town in Sindh, has been drenched by more than 1.8m since the monsoon began in June.

The effect of the heavy rains has been twofold – flash floods in rivers in the mountainous north that washed away roads, bridges and buildings in minutes, and a slow accumulation of water in the southern plains that has submerged hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of land.

In Jaffarabad district of Balochistan on Thursday, villagers were fleeing their homes on makeshift rafts made from upturned wooden “charpoy” beds.