SHAH ALAM, Sept 28 — A total of 15,972 members from various central and state agencies will be stationed throughout Selangor in preparation for any disaster during the northeast monsoon season from this month until December.
Divisional Secretary (Management Services) at the office of the State Secretary Muhamad Shah Osmin said that every member will be prepared to face any possibility of major floods at the end of this year as forecast by the Meteorological Department.
“This year’s preparations are carried out earlier by preparing the members. Not only at the state level but also at the district level as the village heads or residents’ representatives can also carry out management work,” he said after the Selangor Disaster Simulation and Training programme at Dewan Jubli Perak, Sultan Abdul Aziz Building today.
He said a total of 164 boats will be stationed in all districts and other assets such as trucks and four-wheel drive vehicles will also be distributed.
He added that as many as 796 gazetted temporary evacuation centres (PPS), supervised by the Department of Social Welfare (JKM), would be able to accommodate about 151,000 victims.
Commenting on the two-day programme starting today, Muhamad Shah said a total of 67 agencies involving 343 participants from various agencies were drilled in the aspects of communication, services, equipment and assets to face various disasters.
“We will focus on communication management because based on postmortem findings, as a result of our studies and inspections at the state level, we found that it is an important element in the management of an incident (disaster).
“If it is not implemented properly and orderly, we are afraid of a hiccup in disaster management, for example, aid not reaching the victims, search and rescue responders looking in the wrong location and post-flood management not being held in the right area,” he said. — Bernama
