The State Governments efforts in fighting against flood and the success therefore.

The

State

Government

through

its

collaborations

with

various

agencies such as Majlis Keselamatan Negara (MKN), Malaysian Meteorological Department (MMD), Department of Irrigation and

Drainage (DID) and local authorities has taken various steps to mitigate the effects of the occurrences of floods in the state. The occurrences of floods, contributed by two key elements namely rainfall intensity and duration, are normal especially during monsoon season and. Topography, soil conditions, and ground cover also play important roles that contribute to flooding.

The efforts undertaken by the State Government in general and the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MMD) Sarawak Branch

specifically are issuing the early weather warnings and organizing awareness campaigns for the general public. To further improve the

accuracy of the weather warnings, MMD has increased the number of weather radar in the state by acquiring one Doppler radar at Miri in addition to the existing two radars located at Kuching and Bintulu. This will provide better monitoring of the weather situation with wider coverage of rain echo that might cause severe weather to occur at certain places in the state. The weather warning is then disseminated to state disaster management agencies via short messaging system (sms). Besides that, it is also faxed to the national television stations for crawler and news broadcasts.

Secondly, the MMD in collaboration with state MKN has successfully organized many awareness campaigns at various places throughout the state. In 2011, six (6) awareness campaigns themed Kempen Kesedaran Bencana Peringkat Negeri Sarawak were held at various places in Sarawak which attracted many general public from different walks of life including school children. The selected places were SMK Demak Baru, Kuching (1 July 2011); Hotel Parkcity, Bintulu (21 September 2011); Hotel Purnama, Limbang (26 September 2011); Hotel Paramount, Sibu (25 October 2011); Hotel Meligai, Kapit (10 November

2011) and Hotel Hover, Sri Aman (16 November 2011). The topics that were presented during the campaigns are about extreme weather, tsunamis and earthquakes in Malaysia. Beside awareness campaigns, the MMD Sarawak Branch also participates regularly in many

exhibitions held in conjunction with other events like Sejiwa Senada and Science Expo by giving information about the weather situations in the country.

Lastly, the four times daily live weather broadcasts through Radio Television Malaysia (RTM) Channel TV1 are aimed to inform the public about the current and forecast weather for the whole country. Through continuous and up-to-date weather broadcasts, the general publics are more aware of the weather conditions and thus are better prepared to face any adverse weather conditions, especially floods.