Taiwan Today

Relocating those left homeless by Typhoon Morakot must be completed before the annual flood season begins in May, according to Chern Jenn-chuan, deputy executive director of the Morakot Post-Disaster Reconstruction Council Feb. 4. Many indigenous residents, deeply rooted in their hometowns, have been unwilling to move. Chern said they have demanded the government take “the opinions of ancestral spirits” into consideration, but that was beyond his reach personally. He suggested looking at relocation from a geological view. “A substantial number of the devastated locales, mostly in central and southwestern Taiwan, are no longer suitable for on-site reconstruction. We hope they will reconsider their decision, or at least keep our alternative plan in mind,” Chern said. Chen Hongey, a professor in the Department of Geosciences at National Taiwan University, said the geological condition of these places has become very vulnerable now. Because of the precariousness of the physical environment, even though the government has started work on re-establishing transportation routes and dredging rivers, the next time flooding occurs, these hard efforts are still likely to be washed away by mudslides. “This will create an ‘isolated island’ effect, in which an inflicted village is cut off from help as the disaster takes place,” said Chen. “This is not what officials, scholars or residents themselves want to see.” A total of 2,396 households have agreed to relocate, in 10 respective settlement sites in Nantou, Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Taitung counties. This has been made possible through the joint efforts of the government, charity groups and private businesses. For instance, on Feb. 11, 628 families will be moved into Yuemei Farm, a resettlement project sponsored by Foxconn Technology Group in Shanlin Township, Kaohsiung County. In the meantime, the government has started preparations for “disaster shelters” near the typhoon-stricken communities for those residents still unwilling to be relocated. The Niuchoupu and Dongan military barracks in Kaohsiung County, as well as the Radio Taiwan International Changchi Station and Xincuo, Wanluan Township in Pingtung County, were the first four sites evaluated for disaster shelters in January. Roughly 200 households have been included in this emergency plan. The shelters are part of a larger “regular” resettlement and retreat scheme, said the vice chairman. “Natural disasters will only become more common given the geological changes in the region. We hope to set up a mobile system applicable to all potential disaster zones in the future.” The 2010 post-Typhoon Morakot reconstruction budget is NT$155.5 billion (US$4.86 billion), including general and emergency budgets. In addition to the resettlement scheme, dredging work on rivers and reservoirs, proposed by the Water Resources Agency under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, is expected to remove 6.5 million cubic meters of silt by June 2010. Typhoon Morakot, which battered Taiwan in early August 2009, claimed 738 lives and left 192 missing. It is considered the most catastrophic typhoon in the island’s recorded history. (TYH-THN)