Over 12,000 'abang bomba' and 1,000 assets ready for flood season

A total of 12,510 Fire and Rescue Department (JBPM) officers and staff, fondly called ‘abang bomba’, and more than 1,000 assets are ready to be mobilised in tackling the flood problem, which is expected to occur at the year-end.

JBPM director-general, Datuk Seri Mohammad Hamdan Wahid said the department‘s personnel and assets were also ready to deal with unexpected situations such as flash floods which had lately hit a number of locations.

“Usually, the monsoon season will be from November until January, so in preparing for the flood situation, we will place our assets at over 30 identified flood-prone locations.

“Assets and personnel from states not affected by floods will be mobilised to save and evacuate victims in states where floods occur.”

He said this to reporters after officiating at the Disaster Management Exercise (D-Mex) and Fire Safety Campaign 2020 of JBPM Terengganu in Pulau Perhentian, here, yesterday.

On the two-day D-Mex training from yesterday, involving 250 JBPM personnel together with those from other relevant agencies including the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, police, Civil Defence Force, Health Ministry, Besut District Office, as well as Pulau Perhentian volunteer fire-fighters, he said it was aimed at raising their efficiency in handling emergency situations, especially at sea.

Mohammad Hamdan said the training was also important to improve coordination of the agencies’ roles, besides avoiding overlapping of tasks during rescue operations.

-- BERNAMA