Macau (MNA) – The Secretary for Security, Wong Sio Chak, said this Tuesday that authorities would look how to improve its evacuation system for residents in low-rise areas during typhoons.
“Evacuation procedures should be improved. During the process we faced some problems in regard to residents who didn’t want to move from their houses and only after realising they were in danger contacted authorities to help them evacuate, causing risks [to civil protection personnel],” the Secretary said today after a Civil Protection Operations Center (COPC) meeting with the Macau Chief Executive.
On Monday the Secretary indicated that more than 5,650 people living in ground and first floors in low-rise areas were evacuated due to flooding risks.
While the majority choose to stay with relatives a total of 1,346 people found shelter at the 16 emergency centers set in the city for the first time, which operated from 9:00 pm on September 15 until 12:30 pm on September 18.
“We want people to evacuate voluntarily, we need to see how to persuade them to get out because it’s the best way so no conflict situations are cases. But in serious emergency situations where people refuse to get out, according to the law we can force people to evacuate but we don’t want to,” the Secretary said.
On Monday the Secretary for Security had indicated making evacuation during times of crisis mandatory by law would be something considered in the Civil Protection Law currently being devised.
The Secretary also stated that the shelters involved a large number of Social Affairs Bureau (IAS) personnel with the government to also consider increasing the number of human resources to deal with evacuated people.
“Some shelters had less residents than others so in the future we’ll try to distribute people better. There was also language issues with foreigners or people from Mainland China. Language training [for personnel] will also improve,” the Secretary added.
The Secretary also noted more efforts need to be made to inform tourists on typhoon informations and essential warnings – such as the time of closure of border checkpoints – with the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) to be in charge of this aspect.
“Awareness campaigns for residents were well executed but maybe not as good for tourists […]. We will, consider how to increase their awareness, maybe through the MGTO or Customs, with more screens set [in border checkpoints] […]” he said.
However the Secretary also noted that although Cantonese, Portuguese and English was used during awareness campaigns for the typhoon, sometimes people don’t pay attention to the campaigns “thinking it doesn’t concern them”.
“Sometimes they don’t even look to the screens in the border checkpoints. How can we improve that? Tourists themselves have responsibility, but we’ll try to improve this,” he added.
When it comes to informing non-residents the Secretary said better coordination with Companhia de Telecomunicaçōes de Macau (CTM) was also required.
