KUALA BERANG: The dis­aster relief centre at SMK Matang here has been fully upgraded from a tem­por­ary centre to a per­man­ent one and is now ready for use, says National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Agency.

Its dir­ector-gen­eral, Meor Ismail Meor Akim, said the upgrad­ing works involved con­vert­ing an unused hostel block at the school into a per­man­ent dis­aster relief centre, car­ried out from July to Decem­ber last year at a cost of about RM907,000.

He said it is the third such centre com­pleted nation­wide, fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of two sim­ilar centres in Johor – at Dewan Taman Kota Jaya and Dewan Arena Segit­iga in Kota Tinggi.

“We plan to cre­ate 15 per­man­ent dis­aster relief centres nation­wide, either through new con­struc­tion or by upgrad­ing exist­ing tem­por­ary centre facil­it­ies, and this is the third to be com­pleted after the two in Johor.

“We aim to ensure greater com­fort for flood vic­tims, and we also hope the centre can be util­ised out­side the flood sea­son so that it does not become a wasted facil­ity,” he told report­ers after attend­ing the han­dover cere­mony of the relief centre here yes­ter­day, repor­ted Bernama.

Meor Ismail said the relief centre, which can accom­mod­ate more than 200 flood vic­tims at any one time, is equipped with improved facil­it­ies, includ­ing dis­ab­il­ity-friendly toi­lets.

The centre com­prises seven rooms and a stor­age area that can serve as a for­ward base for essen­tial sup­plies and food dis­tri­bu­tion dur­ing flood emer­gen­cies.

Mean­while, he said all rel­ev­ant agen­cies are on full alert in pre­par­a­tion for the next phase of the north-east mon­soon, which is expec­ted to begin today.

“Sev­eral states are cur­rently exper­i­en­cing floods, and this is only the middle of the mon­soon sea­son. Another surge of heavy rain is fore­cast, and all agen­cies have been on standby since the early stages,” he added.