Appropriate community-based emergency response elements for toxic gas release in Pasir Gudang, Johor

Abstract

The number of harmful gas-using industries has expanded dramatically, with the majority of them located near populated areas. Consequently, this presents a significant challenge for government officials to reduce hazards in the vicinity of hazardous gas facilities and offer safe and effective community emergency response team, where serious accidents may occur. The objective of this study is to determine the community-based emergency response elements for toxic gas release in Pasir Gudang. In this work, questionnaire survey was distributed to the community for data collection. A total of 384 communities in Pasir Gudang were chosen as respondents for the study. The performance of the communities in emergency response was utilised as quantitative data and analysed using the Rasch model. The four main constructs evaluated are coordination, collaboration, communication, and capability, with a total of 32 elements of emergency response that were evaluated of its measure mean (logit) and score mean value. Overall, the findings show that the construct of the emergency response has a measure mean (logit) of 0.00 and a score mean of 3.67–5.00. This demonstrates that the level of agreement is high on the elements found in the main constructs.