Kesiapsiagaan berasaskan sains, data dan teknologi digariskan sebagai hala tuju strategik bagi memperkasa pengurusan bencana negara dengan lebih tersusun.

Timbalan Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi yang juga Pengerusi Jawatankuasa Pengurusan Bencana Negara, berkata pengurusan bencana tidak boleh lagi bergantung kepada institusi semata-mata.

“Kita mesti memanfaatkan data raya, analitik ramalan serta integrasi maklumat cuaca, geospatial dan risiko sosial. Sistem amaran awal pintar perlu diperkukuh dan pendekatan anticipatory action mesti dijadikan amalan supaya kita bertindak sebelum bencana berlaku, bukan hanya selepas kerosakan terjadi,” katanya berucap menyampaikan amanat tahun baharu 2026 kepada warga Agensi Pengurusan Bencana Negara (NADMA), di sini semalam.

Yang turut hadir, Ketua Pengarah NADMA, Meor Ismail Meor Akim serta Komander Pasukan Mencari dan Menyelamat Khas Malaysia (SMART), Abdul Manaf Che Isa.

Ahmad Zahid berkata, hala tuju strategik lain adalah tindakan pantas, terselaras dan berdisiplin serta kemanusiaan berteras nilai dan empati.

“Kecekapan di lapangan bergantung kepada struktur arahan yang jelas, protokol respons ke bangsaan yang standard serta latihan bersepadu dan simulasi krisis yang konsisten.

“Dalam setiap tindakan, keselamatan dan maruah mangsa mesti menjadi keutamaan. Pendekatan berpusatkan rakyat perlu menjadi asas, dengan bantuan disalurkan secara cepat, adil dan berintegriti,” katanya.

Sementara itu, Ahmad Zahid mahu pengurusan Monsun Timur Laut 2025/2026 sebagai satu penanda aras baharu dalam pengurusan bencana negara.

“Persediaan awal dimulakan melalui Mesyuarat Jawatankuasa Pengurusan Bencana Pusat (JPBP), disusuli penyelarasan konsisten peringkat lapangan membuktikan (kejayaan),” katanya.

National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Coun­cil will be estab­lished as the coun­try’s highest gov­ern­ing body to coordin­ate dis­aster man­age­ment and risk reduc­tion efforts.

Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said he had instruc­ted the National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Agency (Nadma) to pre­pare a cab­inet paper, which would be cir­cu­lated to all min­is­tries for feed­back before being tabled at the cab­inet.

Zahid, who is also chair­man of the National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, said Nadma would dis­trib­ute the paper within a month. “I will per­son­ally present it to the cab­inet.

“We intend to elev­ate the Cent­ral Dis­aster Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee into a National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Coun­cil. Our aim is to sig­ni­fic­antly enhance the coun­try’s dis­aster man­age­ment frame­work,” he said dur­ing his 2026 New Year address to Nadma staff at the Smart headquar­ters here yes­ter­day. Also present was Nadma dir­ector-gen­eral Meor Ismail Meor Akim.

Zahid said the exist­ing dis­aster man­age­ment mech­an­ism, which oper­ates through the Cent­ral Dis­aster Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, needed to be strengthened to reflect cur­rent real­it­ies.

“At present, the com­mit­tee does not dir­ectly involve men­teri besar and chief min­is­ters, even though state gov­ern­ments hold crit­ical author­ity over devel­op­ment plan­ning, land use and water resource man­age­ment.

“There is also a need for full involve­ment of fed­eral min­is­ters who pos­sess the man­date and capa­city to coordin­ate across min­is­tries and agen­cies,” he said.

“Dis­asters today are no longer isol­ated or sea­sonal. They are increas­ingly driven by cli­mate change, rapid devel­op­ment and urb­an­isa­tion, pop­u­la­tion dens­ity, as well as global uncer­tain­ties.

“Dis­asters now extend bey­ond envir­on­mental issues. They encom­pass pub­lic health, human­it­arian crises, as well as dis­rup­tions to tech­no­logy and crit­ical infra­struc­ture. That is why the old approach is no longer suf­fi­cient,” he said.

Zahid said the National Dis­aster Risk Reduc­tion Policy 2030, which is being for­mu­lated, rep­res­en­ted a long-term national com­mit­ment to strengthen pub­lic aware­ness and pre­pared­ness.

Zahid also said Malay­sia would increas­ingly rely on sci­ence, data ana­lyt­ics and tech­no­logy to anti­cip­ate dis­asters.

“Anti­cip­at­ory action must become stand­ard prac­tice. We must act before dis­asters occur, not only after dam­age has been done.”