Military camps to house flood victims
　

SAFE AND SOUND: The premier said the military had launched a project to house those living in shelters, while the results of tests on the Chinese prefab houses were released
　

By Meggie Lu
STAFF REPORTER, WITH CNA
Monday, Aug 24, 2009, Page 1
　

Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday that the government would use selected military camps as accommodation for victims of the floods caused by Typhoon Morakot.

Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) said the military had launched a special project to implement the policy.

During a visit to soldiers who were injured during disaster relief efforts at the Kaohsiung Armed Forces General Hospital, Liu said the government had been doing its best to accommodate victims now living in shelters in southern Taiwan.

Liu said the government had made available more than NT$10 billion (US$300 million) to accommodate the victims and give them cash subsidies. Liu said he also held a meeting with local chiefs of disaster-hit areas on how to make breakthroughs in the disaster relief effort.

The premier said victims whose houses were damaged during the typhoon could apply for a stipend from their local government after undergoing an official inspection, but people whose houses have been completely destroyed, such as those in Siaolin Village, should apply directly for the stipend.

Later yesterday, the premier said the central government would invite Taiwanese businesses to join the reconstruction work using donations the government had received.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday that the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) and formaldehyde levels in the Chinese-donated prefabricated houses would comply with safety limits a day after assembly and then remain within those limits. The news came after the EPA performed a 16-hour air quality test.

“The EPA recommends that people open the doors and windows of prefabricated houses for a day and then they can safely move into the homes,” Environmental Analysis Laboratory (EAL) Director-General Wang Pih (王碧) told a press conference.

The news came after speculation last week that Chinese-made prefabricated houses may contain levels of formaldehyde that are harmful to health. Reports said that several pregnant women suffered stillbirths or miscarriages after living in the prefabricated houses following the Sichuan Earthquake last year.

On Wednesday, the EPA promised to conduct a formaldehyde test on the homes before Morakot victims moved into them.

Yesterday, Wang said that in the test, “while formaldehyde was not found at all [below 0.1 parts per million], the Volatile Organic Compounds level in the first hour was 11.3 parts per million.”

The EAL tested VOC levels in the homes a total of six times over a 16-hour period on Saturday, Wang said.

“The VOC levels in a completely enclosed prefabricated house reached a high of 15.7 parts per million four hours after being assembled … By the eighth hour, however, that level had dropped to 12.7 parts per million, and after 16 hours, the level dropped to 3.4 parts per million,” Wang said.

The EPA’s recommended safety level for VOC was 3ppm, she said.

Wang said the EPA did not test the house once the VOC levels had reached the safety limit because her team was eager to publicize the results, adding that they estimated that the VOC levels in the houses would drop below 3ppm within 24 hours.

Wang said the EPA was “happy” with the results.

“We hope that people will feel comfortable living in the prefabricated houses … except for the climb to 15.7ppm [during the first four hours], the VOC levels in the assembled prefabricated houses steadily decreased,” he said.

With the five windows and door of the houses opened for maximum ventilation after they are assembled, Wang said the air quality of the homes would reach acceptable levels even faster.

“In the north, it’s common for people to keep their windows and doors shut, but in the south, doors and windows are often left open for ventilation,” she said.

In related news, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is sending a team to Taiwan within the next week to help with reconstruction efforts.

The UN experts will exchange views on reconstruction with local officials, Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓), Executive Yuan spokesman, said by telephone, without giving an arrival date for the delegation.

The UN group consists of three experts and will be the first UN humanitarian delegation to visit Taiwan since a similar mission after the 921 earthquake in 1999, local media reported yesterday.

Flood management plans questioned
　

By Shih Hsiu-chuan
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Aug 24, 2009, Page 3
　

The torrential rain brought by Typhoon Morakot, which killed hundreds and left hundreds missing, exposed crucial questions about environmental policies, flood control strategies and water resources management, experts said yesterday.

Flooding is a long-standing problem that endangers thousands during typhoon season.

The government has spent more than NT$500 billion (US$15.23 billion) on disaster prevention and construction of water conservancy infrastructure in the past 40 years, said Flood Management Watch, an alliance of civil environmental groups.

The country remains highly vulnerable to flooding despite the NT$116 billion, Flood-Prone Area Management plan for 2006 to 2013.

The plan is also known as the “Eight-year, NT$80 billion” project, referring to the funding to improve rivers by the Water Resources Agency (WRA).

“We will only get into deeper water if we continue to stick with the traditional construction methods of flood control,” said Lin Sheng-feng (林盛豐), an associate professor of architecture at Shih Chien University, who served as minister without portfolio in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government.

“Dramatic climate change will bring droughts and floods. When floods come, it is on a scale that levee structures can’t withstand, no matter how high their prevention standards,” Lin said.

CATASTROPHIC EVENTS

The dikes along tributaries of rivers are built to cope with once every 50-year flood events, while the standard embankment dams along main streams are built to withstand 100-year floods.

Last year, the country saw a once-in-200-year flood following Typhoon Kalmaegi, while the flooding caused by Morakot was close to a recurrence interval of 250 years, the Central Weather Bureau said.

Enacting legislation to restrict land use and reverse overdeveloped regions to environmentally healthier lands was crucial, Lin said.

The former DPP government proposed a draft restoration homeland act in December 2005, but the bill was never put onto the legislative agenda because of a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) boycott.

“The main principle in the draft was that ‘human beings cannot conquer nature,’” Lin said.

“In the past when the rainfall was small, humans used construction methods to overcome everything. Now, torrential rain has become part of our life,” Lin said.

“We have to acknowledge this fact and avoid disasters,” he said.

Lin said he met strong opposition when he tried to put the idea into action when he was in government.

“On several occasions after landslides and debris flows, we came up against a brick wall when we tried to convince residents not to rebuild roads in high-altitude areas,” he said.

Hsu Chan-shuan (徐嬋娟), who leads Flood Management Watch, which monitors the implementation of the “Eight-year, NT$80 billion project,” said the program should be suspended.

OVERHAUL NEEDED

“The government’s flood prevention system needs an overhaul because it uses the wrong approach of building up embankments and the like to prevent floods,” Hsu said.

The flooding brought by Morakot destroyed the embankments of the Laonong River (荖濃溪) in Kaohsiung County, the Taimali River (太麻里溪) in Taitung County, the Dajia river (大甲溪) in Taichung County and Niouchou River (牛稠溪) in Chiayi County, among others.

Destruction of river works has not only raised doubts about the effectiveness of such flood control measures, but also worsened the flooding. When dam failures occur, they create a total inundation as opposed to the gradual inundation caused by rainfall.

A major problem with the construction methods used is that they do not address the root cause of floods, Hsu said, citing Kaohsiung County’s Meinong River (美濃溪) as an example.

“The river floods whenever a typhoon comes. The flood management project begun 20 years ago is useless because the river failed to return to its upstream catchment areas, which have disappeared because of human activity. Instead, the project built dikes along downstream areas again and again,” she said.

Building up riverbanks or widening water courses are not the solution to flooding because the soil and water conservation efforts in upstream watershed areas have been seriously damaged, Hsu said.

“The Shuangxi River (雙溪) in Taipei County is another example. The river initially had a catchment area of 60 hectares, but this was cut in half for the construction of a freeway. When a river loses half of its catchment area, how can dikes prevent it from flooding?” she said.

“We human beings have long wrested land from nature bit by bit, and some day nature will take it all back, just as Morokot has done this time,” she said.

TOO MANY COOKS

The fact that a single river watershed district is managed by several agencies, each responsible for different sections of the river, also creates problems.

Rivers are classified into two categories in terms of management. The WRA is responsible for 24 major rivers, known as rivers administered by central government, while the other rivers and local drainage systems are under the jurisdiction of local governments.

The Council of Indigenous Peoples manages the portions of rivers that run through Aboriginal reservations, the Forestry Bureau manages those sections that pass through forestland and the National Property Administration administers any portions of a river going through its lands.

The Council of Agriculture’s Soil and Water Conservation Bureau (SWCB) is responsible for upstream tributaries, local governments and the Directorate General of Highways are in charge of roads on bridges and the bridges themselves, the Taiwan Joint Irrigation Association manages irrigation ditch systems and the Ministry of the Interior’s Construction and Planning Agency takes charge of storm sewage systems and surface runoff that enters the system.

Swing Huang (黃修文), a researcher at the Taiwan Environment Information Center, said this complicated management system has created an environment ruined by flood-prevention work.

It also means that these agencies shirk responsibility for the flooding problems, he said.

“It’s a fundamental mistake to separate a river into different management sections,” Huang said. “For example, the SWCB’s duty is to prevent landslides, while the WRA regulates the flow of a river. When the SWCB builds a sabo dam in upstream areas to prevent landslides, the work will lead to the shrinkage of the cross-section of the river channel, increasing sedimentation and the elevation of the river bed.”

“However, the SWCB doesn’t view these consequences as its responsibility,” Huang said.

The “Eight-year, NT$80 billion” project was earmarked for rivers administered by local governments and local regional drainage systems, while the fund for the 24 rivers managed by the central government is included in the government’s annual budget.

WRA Director-General Chen Shen-hsien (陳伸賢) said a few days ago that the flooding caused by Morakot was mainly due to the overflow of centrally administered rivers and not the rivers governed by local governments, which “proved the ‘Eight-year, NT$80 billion’ project was effective.”

Huang disagreed, saying that the flood-prevention construction projects were a failure.

As of last year, the total length of embankment along centrally administered rivers accounted for about 70 percent to 80 percent of the overall length of the sections of the rivers managed by the WRA.

Huang said that the funds appropriated to the WRA for managing rivers had been used to build dikes and channel water from one river watershed to another, a method often used in Taiwan to supply industrial water.

BLAME

One such current WRA project, building a diversion dam to channel water from the Laonong River in Kaohsiung County’s Jinhe Village (勤和村) to the Zengwun Reservoir (曾文水庫) in Tainan County, has been blamed by village council member Lu Chung-yi (呂仲珆) for the massive landslides in Kaohsiung County.

Ting Cheh-shyh (丁澈士), a professor of civil engineering at the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, said that the extent of the recent flooding was both a natural disaster and also a human-made calamity.

“If the best strategy of returning land occupied by human beings to rivers cannot be used, the second best plan is to reforest bare areas, where ditches could be built to store floodwater or to build flood diversion works to mitigate floods. These two methods need to be included in flood prevention plans, aside from establishing dikes, which should be a last option,” Ting said.

The political disaster is just starting

Monday, Aug 24, 2009, Page 8

The government’s procrastination and passive attitude toward relief efforts in southern Taiwan is bringing additional suffering to victims of the disaster. The nation is in uproar and support for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) has dropped below 20 percent. Although Ma says a Cabinet reshuffle is on the cards, Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) has said that Ma and Liu will not discuss the issue until next month, suggesting that Liu will stay.

If, to Ma, a reshuffle means removing a couple of ministers while keeping Liu in place, the conclusion readily follows that the rest of Ma’s term will be a long battle defending his premier.

The scale of the destruction following Typhoon Morakot, the ferocity of the criticism of the government and the apparently disorientated Ma-Liu team amount to a comprehensive political disaster that cannot be fixed by swapping a few ministers, especially when the main targets of criticism are not those ministers who have offered to fall on their swords, but Ma and Liu themselves. Unless Liu is sent packing, Ma will not be able to contain the anger; instead, he will create formidable opposition.

Ma continues to insist that the reason he did not declare a state of emergency after Morakot hit is that the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act (災害防救法) provided the government with all the authority and resources it needed to deal with the situation. The law names the premier as the convener of the Central Disaster Prevention and Protection Council; he is the one who shoulders responsibility for prevention measures and relief efforts — and who should step down in case of failure.

Following the Bajhang River (八掌溪) incident in 2000, deputy premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) stepped down. The scope of the Morakot disaster is much wider than that isolated incident: Many more people have died and public discontent is much more intense. Yet the government wants to replace only a few ministers. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will never accept this, several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are already rumbling, and even pan-blue media outlets are certain to sneer.

Most importantly, how could the public be expected to accept such an outcome? It would be a decision that the government would regret for the rest of its days.

In trying to escape with a minor reshuffle, Ma is probably considering post-disaster reconstruction and related political issues. Liu has experience from the 921 Earthquake reconstruction effort, and this could deflect some criticism over retaining him. Ma is probably also worrying that removing Liu would set off a series of power struggles in the KMT, and that in trying to maintain the balance, he might need to fight for Liu to the bitter end.

However, Ma’s insistence that Liu stay would show total disregard for public opinion and set a new milestone for elitist arrogance.

Protecting a decision-making structure that no longer functions is a distortion of the meaning of responsible governance. The public wants a strong, able and effective leader who can lead the government and shape the Cabinet to meet new circumstances. Ma, however, is on the verge of compounding his atrocious response to the disaster with a political decision that would bring the government into general disrepute.

What next for the disaster zones?
　

By Lin Wan-i 林萬億
Monday, Aug 24, 2009, Page 8

Two weeks have passed since Typhoon Morakot brought disastrous floods and landslides to southern and central Taiwan. According to the three-stage view of disaster relief, we have now entered the second phase: short-term recovery.

However, many tasks associated with the first phase — emergency rescue — have not been completed. For example, defining disaster zones, exhuming bodies, evacuating the injured and so on. The window of opportunity for most of these tasks has passed. The authorities have come under a lot of criticism for their slow response, and the government’s abilities to handle the disaster are not up to scratch.

Precisely for this reason, as a former government official with experience in several emergency relief efforts, I am duty-bound to remind readers that there is much more to be done. Let’s hope the government can pick up its pace and make up for lost time.

First, the authorities need to speed up recruitment and requisition of personnel and equipment and get them into the disaster zones to carry out tasks such as removing mud and silt, extracting bodies and dead animals, disinfection, drainage and so on. As soon as the weather turns sunny and hot there will be a risk of infection.

Engineers, soldiers, firefighters and health workers need to work as a team. During this period, traffic in and around the disaster zones must be restricted. Other than rescue and relief workers, local residents and relatives, access must be limited to avoid hindering the relief effort.

One effective strategy is cities and counties with plentiful resources “adopting” disaster-hit counties and cities; some media outlets have reported that this has already begun. The local governments can then send in complete task forces, including construction teams, firefighters and medical and social workers, along with equipment and material aid. This would be better than the initial piecemeal approach that has caused headaches for the authorities in disaster-hit counties.

Second, buildings and objects of cultural significance along with the culture, history and memories they carry should be preserved, rather than eradicated by overzealous use of diggers and bulldozers. Many areas that were damaged in this disaster are Aboriginal villages. The Council of Indigenous Peoples and the Council of Cultural Affairs should coordinate to send Aboriginal museum curators, cultural workers and historians into the disaster zones to help with conservation.

Third, relief networks and public services need to be set up in the disaster zones. The authorities need to clarify the identities of the dead and injured and make inventories of damaged property, crops, farm animals and fisheries, factories, shops and so on. Victims should be compensated swiftly through simple administrative procedures that will not add to their worries, and according to uniform criteria as far as is possible.

Fourth, with the new school year fast approaching, orphaned students and those whose schools have been badly damaged or destroyed need to be allocated to other schools and provided with social support. The best way is for the students’ friends or relatives to locate a school for them. Where students have no friends or family, the parents’ association at the new school should adopt them, while their schoolbooks, clothes, lunches and other expenses should be covered by government subsidies.

In the present situation, it would not necessarily be a good thing to relocate all such students to northern Taiwan because relocation far from home entails greater psychological and social costs than finding space in neighboring towns or villages.

The fifth task is the short-term resettling of displaced people. The main thing is to find new homes and help with social reintegration and psychological recovery. The central government and civic groups should assist local governments by making use of resources donated from abroad to construct temporary communities of prefabricated housing in military camps or by renting surplus housing from the private sector.

The authorities also need to arrange for employment counseling, post-traumatic stress therapy, care for the elderly and disabled, medical services and so on. In doing so, the disaster victims’ social organization skills would be put to good use rather than having them rely on the government to handle everything, which could deepen their sense of helplessness.

The sixth component is counseling for relief workers. Soldiers, firefighters, engineers, social workers and volunteers selflessly commit themselves to rescue work in the initial stage of emergency relief. In doing so, however, they are often forced to deal with disturbing experiences such as the sight of dead and even dismembered or rotting bodies and severed limbs. They will need help to recover from any trauma and accumulated stress. Qualified personnel such as psychiatrists, therapists and social workers should be assigned to help them.

The seventh problem is management of donated money and materials. Responsibility for allocation of precious aid and funds donated by the public should be assigned to specific people, otherwise mistakes may result amid the confusion. The current situation, in which there are multiple channels for making donations, lacks central planning and problems are likely to arise.

The eighth task is to start consultations on long-term settlement, which means, above all, rebuilding communities. There is already talk of relocating whole villages, but such suggestions are premature. If these decisions are made too quickly, they may upset the people involved and disrupt the relief effort.

Aboriginal villages have been hit hardest by the typhoon. Their problems should not be seen only from the viewpoint of the majority Han people or according to geographical and engineering criteria alone. Communal, cultural, social and economic aspects need to be considered. The victims themselves must be involved in discussions, rather than have officials and experts decide on their fate behind closed doors, because this is a matter of their lives and livelihoods.

Finally, a long-term recovery plan must be mapped out. Villages have been wrecked, rivers muddied and mountains torn asunder. The road to recovery will be a long one. Preserving and rebuilding communities, collective social healing, soil and water conservation, land-use planning and strengthening structures for disaster prevention and relief are all issues to be addressed, researched and discussed.

Ignorance and arrogance, on the other hand, are the biggest enemies in the process of recovering from a disaster.

Lin Wan-i is a professor in the Department of Social Work at National Taiwan University.

What was the NSC’s role in US aid delays?
　

By Lai I-chung 賴怡忠
Monday, Aug 24, 2009, Page 8

A week after Typhoon Morakot wreaked havoc in southern Taiwan, US Marine helicopters landed here for the first time since the US switched political recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979.

The helicopters are stationed at the US military base in Okinawa, Japan — less than 1,000km from Taiwan — yet they needed eight days to get here, thus missing the critical 72-hour post-disaster window.

This was the result of steadfast accommodation of Beijing’s “one China” principle by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his administration and their refusal to accept US aid, which potentially sacrificed hundreds of lives. Although the government has now accepted US assistance, new problems are emerging.

During a US State Department press briefing on Aug. 11, Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley said the US could use its assets in the Asia-Pacific region to assist Taiwan and cited the case of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, in which the US was able to respond to the tragedy in Indonesia in a timely manner.

But Crowley said he would defer to the Pentagon in terms of what the government might deploy. This suggests that at the time, the US was disposed to sending forces in the Pacific to provide aid in the same way it did in response to the Sumatra-Andaman Islands disaster.

The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group was sent to waters off the Indonesian island of Sumatra in support of the rescue and relief effort in the aftermath of the tsunami. Since all roads to badly hit Aceh Province were cut off, a strong US airlift, search and rescue mission, as well as investigative operations, provided vital aid to Indonesia.

As initial rescue efforts depended on airlifts, the Abraham Lincoln played a crucial role in directing and coordinating air missions. The US also pointed out later that the command, control, communications and intelligence systems of the super-carrier provided crucial assistance within the first 72 hours of the tsunami — the period of time when it was urgent to identify areas in need of evacuation.

The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and Japan’s Interchange Association are the only two de facto embassies in Taiwan with branch offices in Kaohsiung, so they understood how seriously the typhoon devastated southern areas. Had the AIT’s Kaohsiung branch not reported to Washington on the disaster, the State Department, which has stuck to the “one China” policy, would not have expressed its willingness to deploy the military to join the rescue effort because of the sensitivity of US-Taiwan relations.

Incompetent but mindful of the “one China” principle, the Ma administration was acutely aware of the military implications. Reports say that Taiwan’s National Security Council (NSC) suggested that the government turn down US aid and not call for international assistance until after receiving donations from China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait.

The government’s attempt to curry favor with China could thus have been the major cause of delays in the rescue effort. With this, the 72-hour window closed and countless people died.

Taiwan’s emergency response system is in chaos. The rescue effort suffered from delayed coordination with the US military because of the NSC, which opposed US aid because of its adherence to the “one China” principle. The NSC may now have trouble coordinating high-level communications between Taiwan and the US after doubts were aired by the State Department.

Thus, the arrival of the US military rescue team in Taiwan marks the beginning of more problems for the government.

Lai I-chung is director of foreign policy studies at Taiwan Thinktank.