Selangor government implements floods prediction program
Shah Alam - The National Flood Forecasting and Warning Program (PRAB) has been implemented in Selangor to enable disasters prediction accurately.
Selangor infrastructure and public amenities, agriculture modernisation and agro-based industry committee chairman Izham Hashim said, previously the program was not focused on Selangor but on other often flood-hit states such as Kelantan and Terengganu.
Therefore, he said, the program was accelerated in Selangor after major floods hit several areas Last December.
However, he is dissatisfied with the previous warnings issued by the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MeTMalaysia), which was merely an alert but was not a warning to properly describe the severity of the floods.
“PRAB is used with predictions made by MetMalaysia but from this term of impact, it will be performed under the PRAB program.
"If we look back to last December, some warnings were issued, but they were more to alarm rather than to warn. There was no warning that a major flood would occur.
"We would like to ask them to fix it. More accurately, we need simulations under PRAB, ” he said when answering a question from Banting PH assemblymen Lau Weng San, regarding the state government measures of predicting more floods in Selangor, during the state legislative assembly on Tuesday.
Izham said the implementation of the simulation requires topographic profiles of all rivers and areas in Selangor in order to predict floods of recent climate change.
This is because the excessive rainfall occurred in unusual locations, out of the area they usually monitor such as upstream or dam areas.
"Flood mitigation plans can't be completed using normal techniques due to such an unusual phenomenon, such as in Shah Alam where it received rainfall above 300 millimetres (mm) and over 500 mm in downstream areas.
"Climate change is so extreme that we need to do a topographic profile of complete rivers and surfaces in Selangor to avoid floods.
"Without that information, we can’t perform the simulation because it might consume time, ”he explained.
