Why Malaysia keeps flooding: The hard truths we can't ignore

Every year, like clockwork, people in Malaysia watch the same heartbreaking scenes unfold again.Water rising. Homes submerged. Families climbing onto cars for safety.Businesses wiped out in hours. Lives disrupted for months.And after every flood, we repeat the same routine. We talk. We shout. We blame the rain. We ask the same questions we’ve been asking for years.

Maybe the real question is this: are we also contributing to the floods?

Floods do not start with rain. They start with us.

Before the first drop of rain even touches the ground, the flood has already begun.Rubbish thrown into drains. Silt and soil from neglected slopes washed into waterways. Sand and garbage piling up in rivers until the riverbed rises year after year. Drains clogged because no one bothered to clean them – not the contractor, not the council, not even us for failing to report them.And in that moment when the water suddenly surges, it is never the ‘system’ that reacts first. It’s ordinary people. A policeman wading through knee-deep water to unclog a drain. A ride-hailing driver lifting a metal grille with his bare hands so the water can flow. A random ‘uncle’ clearing rubbish in the rain while others stand there filming.These are the people saving neighbourhoods from drowning – not because they are paid to, but because they care.

Yet it raise a painful question: why are ordinary people doing the job the city councils and contractors should have done months ago?

New townships. Old drains. Same old mistakes

Malaysia is developing at lightning speed. New houses everywhere. New ‘smart cities’. New lifestyle parks. New promises of a better life.But behind the glossy brochures lies the brutal truth: most new townships sit on old drainage systems that were never upgraded.Developers build faster than councils can monitor. Approvals come quicker than studies are done. Density increases but drains remain the same size.Retention ponds shrink or disappear altogether. And then we act surprised when the water rises.Where are the enlarged drains? Where are the widened rivers? Where are the proper runoff channels? Where are the annual desilting reports?

Worse still, where is the accountability?

The greed that flooded our cities

Let’s speak plainly. There are people in this country living in low-lying areas, in flood basins, on land everyone knew was dangerous long before the houses were built.And I pity them deeply – because what choice did they have? They bought homes trusting approvals, trusting the authorities, trusting systems meant to protect them.Take Shah Alam. For decades, everyone knew which zones were flood-prone.Engineers knew. Councils knew. State leaders knew. Developers definitely knew. Yet housing projects were approved anyway.Why? Because poor planning and weak development decisions have been made. Because land deals and envelopes spoke louder than environmental studies.Because developers pushed, and someone inside opened the door. Because safety was never prioritised – profit was.Floods didn’t destroy these neighbourhoods. Greed did. And ordinary people – innocent, hardworking people – continue to pay the price today.

Unavoidable questions

To the public: are we dumping rubbish into drains and rivers? Do we report clogged drains, broken grilles, collapsed slopes? Are we demanding accountability or only speaking up once our homes flood?To city councils: when was the last full desilting exercise done on major drains? Where are the audit reports for maintenance contractors? Why are badly designed drains approved? Why are illegal structures narrowing rivers still tolerated?To state governments and legislators: where is your 10-year flood mitigation blueprint? How many planned upgrades have actually been completed? Why were flood basins rezoned into residential areas? Who approved the sale of water retention ponds?To developers: why build homes on land you know is unsafe? Why market ‘dream homes’ while cutting corners on drainage? Why is environmental responsibility treated as a checkbox, not a duty?To the federal government: why are our drainage laws outdated by decades?Where is the national flood risk map accessible to the public? When will prosecution begin for negligence in planning and approvals?

To town planners and engineers: are you designing for Malaysia’s future climate or just recycling old templates? When plans are flawed, do you speak up – or stay silent?This silence, this culture of “buat tak tahu” (feigned ignorance), is drowning us.

Not just natural disasters

We love blaming the weather. We love blaming climate change. And climate change is real – but it is not the whole story.We flood because we didn’t maintain the drains. We didn’t protect riverbanks, we didn’t enforce the laws, we didn’t challenge corruption, we didn’t update the systems, we didn’t defend water retention areas, we didn’t demand accountability. And for decades, we kept quiet when land meant for water was sold for greed.Until we fix the basics, Malaysia will drown again and again – not from rain, but from neglect.

Not just a government problem

It is easy to say, “The government failed.”

But the truth is all of us failed in some way – the public, councils, planners, developers, politicians.But we can also fix it if we demand transparency. If we reject corruption. If we insist that safety must never be negotiated. If we protect our rivers and retention ponds like our lives depend on them – because they do.If we do not change today, the floods will change us tomorrow.Malaysia doesn’t need sympathy. Malaysia needs courage and accountability.Malaysia needs the people – all of us – to finally say: enough.

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