flood in east coast – annual occurence…

… and nothing can be done about it?

i mean yes nothing can be done with nature that bought the heavy rain during this monsoon season, but what about the rivers? the heavy rain burst the river, can something be done to the river? i know nothing about river flow, irrigation, drainage or whatever connected with river, rain and flood but i’m sure something can be done to well, not exactly prevent the flood but at least lessen the flood (some kind of contingency plan or what).

every year around this time, we hear of flood in the east coast, it’s like it has become an annual occurence we have to live with.  i have never been to kelantan or terengganu and i have no family, relatives or even friends in kelantan or terengganu but each time i read about the flood and how the people have to evacuate and so on, i sympathise with the people of kelantan and terengganu. i know how hard it is for the people who have to leave their homes and who have lost their belongings.  of course lives may be lost too… as it had already – so far the report said two lives were lost.  a

no, i have not experienced such a great flood before but i did experienced constant flooding decades back when i was a child staying in the tanjung tokong area.  it was only at one stage when some development works were going on a hill top. of course the flood was nothing compared to these floods caused by the heavy rain and high tide.  the flood water level i experienced at the most, it was only 20 cm high! and it was mainly due to the earthworks that were going on up hill where our village was. when heavy rain came, the water will be washed down from the hill… complete with the earth, that will even washed into our house! we had a hard time cleaning up, especially to dig out the earth!

come every year during this monsoon period, yes, we see the authorities are prepared with warning system, prepared with evacuation plan, prepared with rescue operation and so on but… let me tell you a story.

one day in this small village, the villagers suddenly notice that lots of coconuts were flowing down the small stream of river.  so they try to catch the coconuts as they coconuts flow down the river.  1, 2, 10, 30… more and more coconuts keep flowing down and they have a hard time trying to catch the coconuts and were feeling quite frustrated. suddenly one wise old man said “have any of you ever thought of going up stream to see what cause the coconuts to flow down?”

UPDATED: please refer to comments at anil netto’s post – the comments of antthony tan and kakipulau – were exactly my sentiments.