Sources: Post-Flood Recovery, Increasing Hardship and Poverty
When Floods Strike, Indigenous Populations Are Often Forgotten
Narathiwat Authorities Offer Aid To Flood-Affected Kelantan

#Banjir2014 – a gradual build-up of monsoon. Then the downpour on ancient terrain, raging water on developed land and sweeping onto areas torn by deforestation. The worst Malaysia flooding in decades, and certainly with the most expensive price-tag to rebuild.

More than twenty deaths, a handful missing individuals, and the floods didn’t spare the population, where over 200,000 people were displaced, most from the east coast of peninsula Malaysia.

The destruction of housing, the damage the flood, mud and landslide that wrecked homes. Schools, hospitals and religious buildings were not spared by nature’s wrath. Damage to irrigation, small factories, from rural to the urban settlements. Then we have the submerged homes, damages to crops and livestock, and roads shudder from the weight of muddied floods. A heavy price for our insatiable hunger for progress and our neglect for the environment.

Recovery, now for many families will take a toll on their dwindling savings, loss of wage, of small businesses and farms. A trying period ahead, for a community orphaned by nature and made poorer by our cravings for development.

When Floods Strike, Indigenous Populations Are Often Forgotten

Rain, the monsoon, then nature brews its wrath, with the vicious series of landslides and floods. It’s that time of the year, when communities are made vulnerable by environmental neglect and the fury of mother nature.

The challenges, as governments, military, emergency workers, and NGOs work hand-in-hand with society to save villages, towns, industrial areas and cities. Yet very little is mentioned on mainstream media regarding indigenous populations. Barely two or so articles about Malaysia’s Orang Asli communities in the face of a raging flood, and nothing at all from Thailand’s junta-fearing press about the Mani tribes in flood-wrecked south Thailand. I grow weary of continued societal ignorance, and how indigenous communities are often neglected in the equation of flood relief.

Narathiwat Authorities Offer Aid To Flood-Affected Kelantan

Malaysians give little thought to the floods and other natural disasters affecting the Muslim-majority in south Thailand, often during their time of need. It’s sad, really, to see the complacency despite sharing not only a border but also similar language, culture and most definitely the faith.

According to relief workers in Narathiwat, many Malaysians from Kelantan cross the border into Narathiwat to buy supplies and in most cases, young people seeking temporary work in the conflict-torn province of “ThaiSouth” to make ends meet due to the severity of the Malaysian floods – which wasn’t elaborated and explained by the Malaysian press.

Meanwhile, the Thai authorities in Narathiwat offered humanitarian aid to the representatives of the Kelantan state government.

How you can help

For more information on how you can help the flood relief effort, check out this page and connect with Malaysian NGO, Jaringan Orang Asal SeMalaysia (JOAS).