Enhancing Malaysia S Early Warning System To Save Lives

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The Yang di-Pertuan Agong issued a decree for the Environment and Water Ministry to accord priority to Malaysia’s disaster early warning system, effective coordination between the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) and other agencies, and the process of distributing aid and assistance to the people, in the nation’s preparation for floods forecasted from October 2022 to March 2023.
These areas of concern were raised by His Majesty during the king’s visit to the National Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (PRABN) during a briefing on the year-end weather and flood situation which included the presentation of data, preparations and a list of flood hotspots by Irrigation and Drainage Department (DID) and the Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia)
The continuous alerts by MetMalaysia for Malaysians to brace for these stormy weathers offer a grim reminder of the deadliest tropical cyclone-related disaster to hit Malaysia from Dec 17-19, 2021 with the highest death toll of 54 persons in Malaysia’s flood history.
The lack of an early warning system (EWS) and delayed rescue efforts were cited as factors for these deaths and destructions.
In the aftermath of the December 2021 disaster, the rakyat had observed news reporting conflicting statements of complaints of lack of EWS by the public and the responses from the government stating warnings were given but ignored.
These observations and remarks reflect a sad but sorry state of information disseminated which may not have reached a large group of citizens due to limitations in communication channels as well lack of awareness of the public on how to react and respond to these alerts contributing to many being caught unaware and several tragically perished in the floods.
Thus Agong’s decree to accord priority to several critical areas including Malaysia’s disaster EWS indeed comes at a most crucial moment when the country is making preparations to face the floods already impacting several states and Kuala Lumpur and with the November 2022 flood expected to be worst in recent years.
Agong visiting the National Flood Forecasting and Warning CentreEWS - global overview
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) defines EWS as an integrated system of hazard monitoring, forecasting and prediction, disaster risk assessment, communication and preparedness activities systems and processes that enable individuals, communities, governments, businesses and others to take timely action to reduce disaster risks in advance of hazardous events.
The European Commission’s Publication titled Best practices on public warning systems (PWS) for climate-induced natural hazards outlined that public warning is an institutional duty, as it has to come from official sources and provide authoritative, accurate and timely information to the population interested in risks and hazards at any level.
As a core component of the disaster risk management (DRM) cycle, the PWS includes and implements the sets of practices, tools and procedures that enable experts and authorities to transfer and share information on hazards and safe behaviours with the audience. In order to succeed in this aim, the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) advises to implement a people-centred PWS.
According to this perspective, the public is not an undefined group of people that passively receive information, warnings and intervention, but it represents a heterogeneous community with a range of characteristics to be addressed in order to guarantee that the warning contents will be received, understood and effectively followed.
Within this context, the UNDRR has dovetailed that effective “end-to-end” and “people-centred” EWS, in which the role of local authorities in promoting community-based disaster mitigation is very important to put the Community Based DRM in practice, may include four interrelated key elements: (1) disaster risk knowledge based on the systematic collection of data and disaster risk assessments; (2) detection, monitoring, analysis and forecasting of the hazards and possible consequences; (3) dissemination and communication, by an official source, of authoritative, timely, accurate and actionable warnings and associated information on likelihood and impact; and (4) preparedness at all levels to respond to the warnings received.
The UNDRR underscores that these four interrelated components need to be coordinated within and across sectors and multiple levels for the system to work effectively and to include a feedback mechanism for continuous improvement and that failure in one component or a lack of coordination across them could lead to the failure of the whole system.
Thus Agong’s decree to the Environment and Water Ministry to accord priority to EWS and to ensure smooth and effective coordination between Nadma and all related disaster management agencies is indeed timely and very critical/crucial.
International frameworks
The United Nations has spotlighted the relevance of EWS has been recognised by the disaster management community and is now operated at the local level for some hazards such as floods, and at the national level to address a variety of hazards.
The UNDRR highlighted that The Third International Conference on Early Warning (EWC III) held in Bonn, Germany from March 27-29, 2006 provided the opportunity to present new and innovative early warning projects and discuss natural hazards and risks around the world and how their impacts can be minimised through the implementation of people-centred early warning.
A document “Developing Early Warning Systems: A Checklist” was developed as a conference outcome, to both inform and draw upon the discussions and practical examples raised during the conference, and to support the implementation of the early warning components of the Hyogo Framework for Action.
In addition, significant substantive input was received from organisations and individuals involved in early warning and disaster risk reduction, in the United Nations international system and beyond.
The project was undertaken by consultant Alison Wiltshire, based at the ISDR Platform for the Promotion of Early Warning (PPEW) in Bonn with the financial support of the government of Germany.
On March 23, 2018, World Meteorological Day, a report titled, “Multi-hazard Early Warning Systems: A Checklist”, was launched by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) had highlighted that the checklist provides a list of actions that national governments, community organisations and partners can refer to when developing or evaluating early warning systems based on four main elements: disaster risk knowledge; detection, monitoring, analysis and forecasting of hazards and possible consequences; warning dissemination and communication; and preparedness and response capabilities.
It is envisaged that the document will be updated based on the development of technologies, advances in multi-hazard early warning systems and feedback from the users.
Recognising the critical importance of EWS in reducing deaths during a disaster, the special representative of the UN secretary-general for disaster risk reduction (DRR), Mami Mizutori, urged countries to incorporate the checklist into national and local DRR strategies, which are scheduled to be in place by 2020 in accordance with target of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.
She said that a multi-hazard approach to early warnings is critical for building disaster resilience. WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas said WMO is working to establish a global standardised multi-hazard alert system in collaboration with National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS).
There are various ways of classifying EWS; those developed and implemented for different types of hazards such as floods, tsunamis and fires; by the level at which it is operated; local/community, national or regional or as a single or multi-hazard system.
Impact of EWS on number of deaths from disasters
Over a period of 50 years (1970-2019), 155 persons perish and losses of US$202 million are incurred daily as a result of weather, climate or water-related disaster in 2021, according to the 2021 Report of the WMO on Disaster Statistics.
The report dovetailed that the number of recorded disasters increased by a factor of five over that 50-year period, driven by human-induced climate change, more extreme weather events and improved reporting. (see Fig 1)
WMO highlighted that during the same period, thanks to better warnings, the number of lives lost decreased almost three-fold over the same period because of better weather forecasts and proactive and coordinated disaster management. (see Fig 2)
Hence it is evident that a successful EWS supports public officials and administrators in their planning, helping to save lives and jobs, land and infrastructures, protecting economies and ultimately supporting long-term sustainability.
Role of EWS
Disasters take a toll on human lives, the lives of animals, the environment and the economy. WMO’s 2021 Report on Disaster Statistics has shown clear evidence of the role of EWS in reducing deaths from disasters.
However, not all nations nor citizens have access to effective EWS.
Climate Change News Reported that the WMO estimates that one-third of the world’s population is not covered by an early warning system. (see chart below)
This includes 60 percent of Africans, particularly in the continent’s poorest countries in central, west and east Africa.
Many small island developing states also lack weather forecasting capacity.
Thus strategies and plans are being put in place to address this shortfall.
EWS - global target
On March 23, 2022, during World Meteorological Day, UN secretary-general António Guterres dovetailed that human-caused climate disruption is now damaging every region and highlighted that the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change details the suffering already happening. Each increment of global heating will further increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
Guterres advocated that we must invest equally in adaptation and resilience and emphasised that this includes the information that allows us to anticipate storms, heatwaves, floods and droughts Guterres remarked that one-third of the world’s people, mainly in the least developed countries and small island developing states are still not covered by early warning systems and that in Africa, the situation is even worse with 60 percent of people lacking coverage.
UN secretary-general António GuterresHe stressed that this is unacceptable, particularly with climate impacts sure to get even worse.
It is thus within this context that Guterres has announced an ambitious new United Nations target for, everyone on earth to be protected by early warning systems against increasingly extreme weather and climate change within the next five years and tasked WMO to lead the effort and present an action plan to achieve this goal at the next UN climate conference in Egypt this November (2022).
Following on from Guterres’ announcement, and as the new plan seeks to build on existing WMO activities and partnerships, WMO will convene key agencies, countries and groups already active in the field of Hydromet and Risk-Informed Early Warning capacity development to build on the excellent existing efforts and create a global plan by COP27.
Closing the early warning gap will require inputs from actors throughout the entire early warning to the early action value chain.
Recommendations for Malaysia
The European Union’s JRC has spotlighted that alerts are effective only if understood and that recipients are able to take timely and effective actions.
1. Thus to enhance the public’s understanding as well as an effective response to improve their safety and survival, Malaysia’s national, state and local disaster agencies and departments could adopt and adapt guidelines and checklists for developing effective end-to-end and people-centric early warning system promoted by authoritative international and regional agencies such as the United Nation’s UNDRR, European Union’s JCR.
After comparing Malaysia’s current EWS with the checklist outlined, if gaps are found, it is imperative for the government to quickly address this gap to enhance the safety and survival of Malaysians and non-Malaysians staying, working, doing business and holidaying in the country to prepare for the coming flood.
The EU has outlined that the EWS strategy must acknowledge that the public is no longer a passive recipient of messages where the population is basically the end point but should instead be considered as an active individual, who is able to, directly and indirectly, interact with information, who can be expected to play a role and even contribute to risk prevention and to emergency response as a responding community
2a. Hence Malaysia could consider shifting from a traditional linear approach with alerts sent out from authorities to the public, to a more inclusive and people-centric approach illustrated as a DRM Ecosystem (see chart) inviting inputs and response from the public as useful feedback to enhance EWS as well as offering platform for the public to seek information and help
2b. Plan prevention campaigns and organise local, state and national townhall sessions to inform people about the risks they are exposed to, the situations that they may face, and, in case of special media such as sirens, which are the ones used for the different hazard and define a clear behaviour, eg if you hear the siren, immediately go home, do not drive or walk in flood waters and other additional crucial messages.
Malaysia may wish to utilise drones to deliver these messages such as that implemented by selected countries warning citizens during the Covid-19 pandemic.
2c. As the UNDRR had highlighted for the system to work effectively a feedback mechanism should be included for continuous improvement, the national, state and local government should organise several public and community sessions with residents and businesses previously impacted by the December 2021 floods to attend and share their experiences plus more urgently to propose to the local, state and national government specific activities and programmes must be adopted and introduced as feedback to improve Malaysia’s current EWS, which was evidently not performing to mark during the recent floods resulting in the highest death toll.
3. Additionally the JRC had advocated that for the warning subsystems, wireless infrastructure is preferable to a cabled one, both for cost-saving purposes and for facilitating the connection between the system components.
Malaysia may wish to make similar investments in order to reach as many Malaysians as possible to announce and disseminate these alerts to enhance the safety and survival of Malaysians and other stakeholders living in Malaysia.
4. Following the JRC recommendation that PWS should be inclusive with respect to all DRM actors (ie agencies and authorities) involved in the emergency management procedures, supporting the delivery of alerts across multiple hazards and media using a common standard for alert exchange, Malaysia could build a national centralised system, which integrates all alert messages sent by the authorities through the Internet, in a unique and secure gateway to which multiple subsystems can be connected in order to read and spread the alert messages. (see chart below)
This would be in consonance with Agong’s decree for effective coordination between Nadma and related agencies.
5. In line with the UN secretary-general‘s task for WMO to lead efforts for EWS to reach everyone within the next five years, Malaysia’s national, state and local government could set up a task force at these levels aimed at achieving this target within the desired timeframe to enhance the safety and survival of Malaysians as well as businesses, tourists and others in Malaysia during disasters …with the principle that “No one should be left out to have access to EWS” which is vital for enhancing safety and survival and reducing deaths due to hazards. - Mkini
SHERIFFAH NOOR KHAMSEAH AL-IDID SYED AHMAD IDID is an Innovation and Nuclear Advocate at Alumna Imperial College, University of London, United Kingdom.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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