How Malaysia stepped up when Hatyai went under
From Agha Ali
When the waters began swallowing the streets of Hatyai last week, rising fast, dark and unforgiving, it was not the statistics that first gripped Malaysians watching from home.
It was the grainy videos of families wading through chest-high currents, the trembling voices on phone calls asking for help, and the quiet dread of knowing that thousands of our own people were caught in a foreign city suddenly cut off from the world.
The foreign ministry, more commonly known as Wisma Putra, did far more than simply extract Malaysians. Its officers went into flooded zones, working with Thai agencies and volunteers to clear routes that helped mixed groups of travellers and locals alike. The mission quietly became a humanitarian effort rather than a narrow rescue.
Wisma Putra activated its consulate’s humanitarian response in Songkhla almost immediately. Malaysian officers went door to door, floor to floor, message group to message group, accounting for the stranded and…
