Perception of flood victims towards housing reconstruction after 2014 flood in Kuala Krai, Kelantan

Abstract

housing reconstruction in the aftermath of a disaster is critical assistance that is provided after emergency aid. the government and agencies are compelled to rebuild houses for the community made homeless by the disaster. nevertheless, inadequate attention has been given to the post-reconstruction stage to ascertain if the project was built according to occupants? needs. previous studies have highlighted numerous issues that had occurred within the completed post-disaster housing which have caused living difficulties among the occupants. in view of the foregoing issues, this study explored residents? perceptions, housing modifications and their preferences for the reconstructed houses in kuala krai, the most severely-hit district in kelantan during the disastrous 2014-flood. across the district, there are two types of housing reconstruction, namely rumah kekal baru (rkb) and rumah kluster (rk). rkb was built on the beneficiaries? own land, and rk was a relocation scheme. kampung manek urai lama was chosen as the case study for rkb, and laman seri ehsan in kampung telekong was the case study that represented rk. semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data for this study, while visual research was accomplished to assess housing modifications and adaptations. 18 respondents were selected through purposive sampling from which only informative samples with related experiences were selected. a qualitative analysis software, atlas.ti version 8 was utilised in this study. the analysis revealed that residents were pleased with the house replacement, but were not pleased with the conditions of the house. it was discovered that certain housing necessities and local traditions were not considered in the original house design. these shortcomings were found to be the major reasons that forced the residents to modify their houses even with meagre financial resources. unfortunately, a majority could not afford to improve their houses to meet their needs. this study discovered that “one-size-fits-all” house design is not feasible to be adopted especially in poverty-stricken community. therefore, with an emphasis on the beneficiaries? well-being, this research recommends the adoption of a core house approach, participatory approach and a comprehensive evaluation when designing and planning for better future housing in a post-disaster context. the outcome of this research could facilitate a better pre-disaster planning and post-disaster recovery that would involve various parties including the government, authorities, consultants, academicians and the rescue department. finally, this research has demonstrated that it is important to evaluate post-disaster housing outcomes as they offer opportunities to recognise and subsequently overcome the issues that had previously led to housing that did not fulfil the occupants? needs.