Don’t blame God, take a look at your drainage

2016 has been an unusually wet year for the southern part of Sarawak and many parts in the region were repeatedly hit by severe floods.

While for areas like Siniawan, parts of Bau and Lundu districts these monsoon floods are perennial, the sheer volume of flood water which inundated the villages wreaking unprecedented damage to roads, properties and triggered many landslides caught everyone by surprise.

However, it was the floods in Kuching that raised the most eyebrows.

Some areas in the city centre which had not been flooded since the 1963 great flood which devastated the whole state were inundated rendering many roads impassable to traffic. Even the General Hospital was inundated which is unprecedented.

Although the floods have receded now, nobody is sure the heavens would not open up again with the same vengeance that caused the floods in the last few weeks.

However the respite has given the authorities and the public the breathing space to speculate what went wrong in Kuching and what could be done to cope with another sustained deluge.

As expected the first finger was pointed to the act of God – unprecedented amount of rainfall that overwhelmed the drainage system of the city,

The next culprit is also a natural phenomenon – the tide especially the king tides.

While it is true that king tides often caused low lying areas near rivers to be flooded, many floods in Kuching occurred when the tide was low and ebbing.

That put paid to the contention that the tides and the control of the barrage at the Sarawak river were to blame for the flood in the city.

This puts the spotlight on the drainage system of the city in the search for the reason behind the floods.

To its credit, the state government did not sidestep the issue and admitted that the drainage system of the city could not cope with the rain.

However, it would be a folly to think the drains overflowed because that this year’s rains have been unusually heavy and that under normal circumstances there would be no flood.

It is wrong to take that stance because with global warming the weather is expected to be extreme and heavy rain during the rainy season and drought during the dry season.

The city planners now have to take into consideration this factor in planning and revamping the drainage system.

More damning is the fact that the expansion and growth of Kuching had been poorly managed which resulted in blocked drains and sluggish flow of water in the drains.

Flash floods after heavy rain have been the tell tale signs of the inefficiency of the drainage systems but these have been ignored by the relevant authorities for too long.

Admitting the poor state of the drainage system of not only Kuching but also other towns in the state, Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem said there is a need to revamp the drainage system of the state.

This would be a very costly exercise which Adenan admitted that the state could ill afford.

He has turned to the Federal Government for help and thankfully Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak agreed that the federal government would chip in.

Hopefully the overhauling of the state’s drainage system could be implemented as soon as possible because given the unpredictable weather these days, no one could be sure when the next flood would hit our towns and cities.

Next time it floods don’t blame God, blame our drainage system.