Musminah lives next to her sister, and when Malaysiakini visited, a mound of dirt was piled in between their homes. They had spent more than RM1,000 to buy the soil, in hopes of raising the grounds to stop floodwaters.
Izham Hassan’s family has farmed rice for generations but 2016 was the first time sea water flooded into their fields. “We invested RM1,000 per furlong and we planted in five furlongs and there was zero yield. The following four seasons we had zero yield, too.” With Malaysia producing only 70 percent of its rice needs, and currency devaluation making imports costly, this is a recipe for greater food insecurity, affecting all Malaysians.The bund built to stop sea water from entering paddy fields in Kuala Kedah in 2020 have thus far been successful but it did not come cheap and will not last forever.
Nahrim projects that when sea levels rise, due to climate change, an area the size of 5,600 football fields in Klang will be underwater. A sizeable portion will be the industries in Port Klang. “Although sea level rise projects may seem mild on paper, the speed of which the sea rises depends on how fast the glaciers melt. So the government needs to be more proactive.”
We need to fix this issue. Always the same town or city all the time. Somebody for sure could foresee eh? Stop politiking and start to fix this crisis