2015 Cheers and Jeers

All new year celebrations are cancelled this year to sympathise with the victims of the catastrophic flooding in several States in Malaysia, especially Kelantan, Pahang and Perak. Thousands have been evacuated and are being sheltered in relief centres while some thirty deaths have been registered, including women and children. Nothing like this has happened before.
houses submerged

To the devout Muslims, this indeed is an act of God and only Allah SAW knows why such calamity must befall us in this nation, aside from the other tragedies that had shaken us all before this. The fate of flight MH370 is still unknown and the falling prices of oil, rubber, palm oil together with the scandals in huge government-related companies, are all causing cold shivers in our hearts. Allah SAW knows what happened however well the real truths are hidden from the public, and His decisions are always the best for all of us.

But we must also check ourselves and accept the mistakes that we make as human beings. The weather alone doesn't cause the floods. There has been a number of rainy spells in the past with floods that could be satisfactorily managed. How come this time around the water rises to unexpected levels to completely submerge and destroy houses and homes? The rivers and drainages must have been clogged by silts and mud due to outrageous land development, chopping down hills and trees without a care in the world. Catestrophic landslides have been the outcome and don't blame Allah for such disasters.
roads buckling up or caving in

Even the highways and roads are often waterlogged due to haphazard construction without proper drainage. Uneven road construction with bumps and potholes are a common result of the seemingly unsupervised initial or repair works. In Housing areas the construction of oversized and hoop-like humps seemed to be omnipresent, while the yellow stripes near tolls and in dangerous corners are raised high enough to give the cars a good shake up. Old jalopies can easily fall into pieces with constant use. The joints in bridges and flyovers are never smooth allowing water to collect on rainy days and cause flash food along the roadsides.
an overcrowdedrelief center

I wonder if JKR is supervising the road construction and repairs by the private sectors at all. Also whether the humps and bumps constructed to slow down traffic conform to any standards such that they don't scratch the bottoms of cars with low profile. The scratch marks and dents on the bumps and the roads indicate that safety standards had not been adhered to.

Let's take stock of the calamities and catastrophe that had befallen us in 2014. To what extent have we, the citizens of this country as planers, developers, contractors and business people, contributed to the disasters and problems such as floods, landslidea, cave-ins on roads, collapsing buildings and rooves, aside from the economic dilemma and miseries faced by the poor? These are the jeers that we must face aside from the cheers that we hope for in 2015. As we can observe, the prosperous Malaysians have nothing to fear. The country is rich and doing well. But the poor, the disadvantaged, the villagers, the working class, the "obedient servants' of the public, the unemployed, the victims of what is termed as 'natural disaster' whereas much is caused by inconsiderate and greedy humans, continue to suffer.

We hope that those who suffered from no fault of theirs, will be duly rewarded by Allah, and those responsible for such sufferings be duly sanctioned unless they repent. Allah never harms but we harm ourselves.