Recovery and Resettlement: 2006-2007 Flood Responses in Johor Re-visited

Introduction

The Kota Tinggi town in east Johor, Malaysia experienced two consequential extreme floods in December 2006 and January 2007 that paralysed the area and interrupted peoples’ daily activities for quite a long period. In order to reduce future risks, the Johor State Government immediately committed to a resettlement program that involved 360 families from six highly flood-affected kampung (villages). This study reviews their experiences in the new resettlement named Desa Sejahtera, as compared to the kampung based on the fieldwork conducted between December 2014 and January 2016.

Disaster Recovery Process

There are four significant phases of disaster recovery process: (1) Immediate response – including providing medicals, foods and clean water supply, emergency search and life rescues; (2) Short term response – where the provision of temporary or transitional shelters are prepared for victims, recovering minimum standard public services and infrastructures, rebuilding permanent houses, and mental rehabilitation; (3) Medium response – recovering economy, identifying beneficiaries and local capacities; (4) Long-term response – constructing the whole system, continuous support and resettlement. Desa Sejahtera is part of the long-term discovery response. The government took 5 years to complete the project before the beneficiaries moved there.

Relocation map

The diagram shows the distance of the existing location of six highly affected kampung from the new resettlement. All of the kampung are located nearby the Johor River. However, these villages, with the exception of Kampung Sungai Berangan, were quite special as they are ‘villages within the town’ located by the river but within reach of the town center.

Conclusion

There is a need to pay greater attention to the resettlement program as disaster recovery responses as it requires number of considerations. This is because people that are moving have lived in the kampung for a long period of time. Some families association with the kampung stretched over many generations and consequently they felt deeply rooted in their location. In many ways, living with regular flooding had influenced their historical patterns of intervention and architecture. It also involves the upheaval of people and livelihoods and may also provoke social disruption. Kampung has a broader meaning, which encompasses home, familiar surroundings, relatives and neighbors and is the focus of life and activities, ranging from farming practices, to communal rites, social functions, and religious rituals.