ARAU: Banjir besar melanda negeri ini pada November lalu menyaksikan Sekolah Tengku Budriah (STB) di sini antara yang teruk terjejas dengan tahap kemusnahan sehingga 90 peratus.

Banjir yang disifatkan terburuk dalam tempoh 15 tahun itu menyebabkan kemusnahan bilik darjah, bilik muzik, pusat komputer, bilik guru, kantin selain peralatan seperti buku latihan murid, rak buku, meja tulis serta pelbagai lagi kelengkapan lain.

Bagaimanapun, bencana tersebut tidak mematahkan semangat barisan pentadbir sekolah berkenaan yang bangkit melakukan persediaan bagi menyambut murid-murid sempena sesi baharu persekolahan Isnin ini.

Semalam, warga sekolah, ibu bapa dan murid-murid bersama-sama bergotong-royong melakukan persiapan terakhir menjelang sesi pembukaan sekolah berkenaan.

Guru Besar STB, Nor Zaitun Ibrahim berkata, semua warga sekolah dan ibu bapa bersama hadir bagi sesi gotong-royong tersebut dan melakukan persiapan pembukaan sekolah khususnya di kelas masing-masing.

Katanya, pasca banjir sebelum ini, guru, ibu bapa dengan keterlibatan pelbagai pihak seperti pertubuhan bukan kerajaan (NGO) dan Jabatan Pendidikan negeri membantu membersihkan sekolah yang memakan masa lebih sebulan.

“Banjir besar baru-baru ini menyaksikan kita berdepan lebih 90 peratus kemusnahan. Namun sekolah bangkit semula dengan penambahbaikan dan menyediakan keselesaan di sekolah termasuk mengecat semula kelas-kelas serta membaik pulih kantin.

“STB antara sekolah yang paling teruk terjejas ekoran banjir besar tersebut. Semua pihak memainkan peranan dalam menyambut kemasukan murid bagi sesi baharu persekolahan ini,” katanya kepada Utusan Malaysia.

Untuk sesi tahun ini, sebanyak 157 murid tahun satu bakal mendaftar di STB dengan keseluruhan murid sekolah tersebut pula seramai 1,007.

Nor Zaitun memberitahu, dalam tempoh banjir dan pasca bencana tersebut, murid-murid menjalani kaedah Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran di Rumah (PdPR).

“Kehadiran murid-murid membantu gotong-royong lebih awal memandangkan sekolah sebelum ini ditutup dan murid-murid menjalani PdPR. Murid-murid dan guru masing-masing membersih serta menghias kelas yang kelihatan sangat cantik,” katanya.-UTUSAN

Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said a National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Coun­cil is pro­posed to be estab­lished as the highest body respons­ible for coordin­at­ing dis­aster man­age­ment and dis­aster risk reduc­tion.

Ahmad Zahid, who is also National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee chair­man, said he had instruc­ted the National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Agency (Nadma) to pre­pare a Cab­inet paper to be cir­cu­lated to all min­is­tries for feed­back.

“Within a month, it will be cir­cu­lated for review, and I will per­son­ally present it (at a Cab­inet meet­ing).

“(In) upgrad­ing the Cent­ral Dis­aster Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee to the National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Coun­cil, we want dis­aster man­age­ment to be sig­ni­fic­antly enhanced.”

Ahmad Zahid said the cur­rent national dis­aster man­age­ment mech­an­ism through the Cent­ral Dis­aster Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee needs to be fur­ther strengthened.

“At present, the exist­ing com­mit­tee does not yet involve the dir­ect par­ti­cip­a­tion of men­teri besar and chief min­is­ters, even though state gov­ern­ments hold key author­ity over devel­op­ment, land use and water resource man­age­ment, crit­ical factors that influ­ence dis­aster risk and impact.

“There is also a need for the full involve­ment of fed­eral min­is­ters who have the man­date and capa­city to coordin­ate in an integ­rated man­ner across min­is­tries and agen­cies, allow­ing decisions to be made more quickly, decis­ively and effect­ively.” – Bernama

Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has pro­posed a National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Coun­cil to be the coun­try’s highest body on dis­aster man­age­ment and risk reduc­tion.

The Deputy Prime Min­is­ter said that dur­ing any crisis, all inform­a­tion must come from a veri­fied source to ensure proper coordin­a­tion.

“For instance, in coordin­at­ing inform­a­tion, there should only be one spokes­per­son or source. Or else there will be con­flict­ing inform­a­tion. We are not ask­ing to con­sol­id­ate more power but to coordin­ate everything.

“That is why I would like to pro­pose the form­a­tion of the coun­cil as the highest body respons­ible for coordin­at­ing dis­aster man­age­ment and risk reduc­tion,” he said in a New Year address to the National Dis­aster Man­age­ment Agency (Nadma) per­son­nel here yes­ter­day.

To imple­ment the pro­posal, he dir­ec­ted Nadma to pre­pare a Cab­inet paper within one month. “You need to dis­trib­ute it to the respect­ive min­is­tries and min­is­ters to get their feed­back before I table it in the Cab­inet,” he said.

Ahmad Zahid also wanted Nadma to set a new bench­mark in national dis­aster man­age­ment for man­aging the ongo­ing north­east mon­soon.

“In my view, early pre­par­a­tions ini­ti­ated through the Cent­ral Dis­aster Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee (JPBP) meet­ing, fol­lowed by con­sist­ent coordin­a­tion at the field level, have proven that cross-min­is­terial, depart­mental, agency and state gov­ern­ment cooper­a­tion is import­ant,” he said, adding that this had reduced delays, min­im­ised con­fu­sion and accel­er­ated response dur­ing crit­ical situ­ations.

He cited the Ban­tuan Wang Ihsan via elec­tronic fund trans­fer method as another game changer in dis­aster man­age­ment, with funds dis­trib­uted dir­ectly to vic­tims.

Ahmad Zahid said this was made pos­sible through a cross-func­tional approach with Bank Sim­panan Nas­ional, sup­por­ted by a digital sys­tem via the MYIBJKM applic­a­tion developed by the Wel­fare Depart­ment.

“This approach has sig­ni­fic­antly trans­formed vic­tims’ exper­i­ence, from a pro­cess that pre­vi­ously required a wait­ing period of between three and six months. Pay­ment is made while the flood vic­tims are still in the tem­por­ary evac­u­ation centres,” he said.

Ahmad Zahid also out­lined three stra­tegic dir­ec­tions for strength­en­ing dis­aster man­age­ment – sci­ence- and data-driven pre­pared­ness; rapid and dis­cip­lined coordin­a­tion; and com­pas­sion­ate, people-centred human­it­arian action – to guide Nadma towards greater resi­li­ence and pub­lic trust.

“Dis­aster man­age­ment must move bey­ond insti­tu­tional reli­ance by lever­aging big data, pre­dict­ive ana­lyt­ics and integ­rated weather, geo­spa­tial and social risk inform­a­tion, strength­en­ing smart early warn­ing sys­tems, and adopt­ing anti­cip­at­ory action so responses occur before dis­asters strike rather than after dam­age hap­pens,” he said.