HAVE you ever heard the story of a girl named Tilly Smith? On Dec 26, 2004, Tilly and her family went to Phuket, Thailand, for a Christmas holiday. While at Maikhao Beach, she sensed something was not right.
The water was bubbling and swelling, the tide went out suddenly and the sea was fizzing. Tilly freaked out and shouted that a tsunami was coming.
The 10-year-old learned about tsunamis in her geography class two weeks before coming to Thailand. Tilly’s action saved about 100 people and because of that she was once called the “angel at the beach”.
Tilly’s experience teaches us that it is imperative for society to learn about every aspect of disaster education, starting from the understanding of different types of disasters to learning about the numerous ways to save lives.
The learning process should be carried out in the school system or through informal education for the masses. Regardless of the medium of learning, disaster education should be implemented immediately, since a catastrophic disaster will strike without any notice.
Disaster education is important not only because it raises public awareness of disasters, but because it will also provide useful knowledge on disasters.
The students and the general public could learn about various kinds of disasters or the signs of disasters.
At the same time, disaster education helps community disaster preparedness. Finally, learning about disaster will facilitate the community to act appropriately in any disaster. At the end of the day, all of these will strengthen community disaster resilience.
Community disaster resilience refers to the ability of the community to face the disaster and their capability to rebuild their lives to the pre-disaster situation.
Besides the ability of a community to “bounce back” (i.e. resume normal functioning) to pre-disaster conditions, community resilience also involves the capacity of the community to “bounce forward”.
Malaysia is regarded as a fortunate country (particularly Peninsular Malaysia), which is not vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes.
However, Malaysia is exposed to other types of catastrophes such as floods, droughts and haze.
Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Perak, Johor, Sabah and Sarawak are often hit by floods, particularly monsoon floods.
On December 2014, most of these areas were hit by massive floods.
The National Security Council Malaysia confirmed that the floods, popularly called the Bah Kuning, that hit Kelantan were the worst in the history of the state since 1967.
According to the council’s report, the water level of Sungai Kelantan at Tambatan DiRaja, which has a danger level of 25m, reached 34.2m in 2014 compared to 29.7m in 2004 and 33.6m in 1967.
The 2014 floods taught us that being better prepared, especially at the community level, is crucial.
As the community is the “first responder” in any disaster, they should be well-prepared to face the calamity.
Preparedness is part of disaster education. In terms of Malaysia, site-specific disaster education programmes are crucial. In other words, this kind of education is vital, especially for communities prone to disasters.
The education programme must not be done in an ad hoc manner.
A well-organised and consistent disaster programme is essential in order to enhance overall community disaster resilience.
The preparedness effort is natural in the life of any person.
Even in Islam, making a systematic preparation or arrangement before any disaster event is strongly recommended.
In the Quran, the story of Prophet Yusuf’s preparation for a disaster (famine) is very enlightening.
He interpreted a king’s dream to mean that there would be seven years of abundance and the land should be properly cultivated.
This would produce an excess of good harvest, more than the people needed and the excess should be stored.
Following that seven years of abundance, there would be seven years of famine during which time the excess grain could be used.
He also advised that during the famine they should save some grain to be used for seed for the next harvest.
Prophet Yusuf also added that after seven years of famine, there would be a year during which water would be plentiful.
If the water was properly used, grapevines and olive trees would grow in abundance, providing the community with plenty of grapes and olive oil. (Yusuf, 12:46-49)
The story teaches us that disaster preparedness is important.
In Malaysia, carrying out a disaster preparedness programme, be it in terms of education, technology advancement or food storage, is essential and should be strongly encouraged.
Azrina Sobian is a Fellow at Ikim’s Centre for Science and Environment Studies. The views expressed here are entirely her own.