The work of counting the cost of flooding caused by Typhoon Xangsane began yesterday as damage estimates to agriculture and property weighed heavily on the prices of vegetables and real estate. The Council of Agriculture (
Hardest hit was farmland in Taipei County, which suffered losses amounting to NT$606 million and, along with Nantou, Taitung and Hualien counties would see their farmers receive relief funds of NT$100,000 for every hectare of farmland that is washed away and NT$50,000 for every hectare that is submerged.
Also swamped by the storm were the eastern counties of Tainan, Pintung and Kaohsiung, where high losses qualified farmers in these areas to apply for natural disaster relief funds and low interest government loans, according to the Council.
Farmers in Taichung, Changhua, Chiayi, Taitung and Hualien also saw losses high enough to qualify for low interest government loans.
Most of the damage to agriculture was borne by farmland, fish breeding ponds and orchards resulting from flooding and landslides, according to the Council. As a result of damaged and lost crops, wholesale prices for vegetables in Taipei rose by 16 percent and 24 percent in Kaohsiung as supply from Taiwan's premier vegetable growing regions along the east coast had been reduced by approximately 20 to 30 percent, the agriculture council said. However, TV reports said that prices could jump as much as 30 percent in markets across the nation.
Supply should return to normal by the middle of the month or early next month at the latest, said the council.
And while the actual physical damage to houses and property is still being counted, the damage to the long-term market value of real estate in the heavily flooded areas of Hsichi and Keelung were also being calculated yesterday.
Real estate company Evertrust Rehouse (
Keng Hua-shuang, (
"Prices for homes in these areas are already very low," said Keng. This has been compounded by oversupply in the housing market -- there are already 5,300 housing units waiting to be sold in Hsichi, where most of the apartments are new -- and an atrocious history of being hit by floods.
But while thousands bemoan the costs of ruined vegetables and devalued apartments, professional cleaning companies around some of the more severely hit areas like Hsichi and Neihu see the money rolling in from a spike in demand for their after-disaster cleaning services.
An employee at the Lichang Engineering Co, that specializes in cleaning up after floods, said over the last two days his company had cleaned up around 50 to 60 houses in areas in Taipei City and county.
"We help not only to pump out the flood waters but also to clean up the debris," he said. While fees are determined on a case-by-case basis, an average pump-and-clean job on a 20 ping (66m2), single-floor basement might cost on average of between NT$10,000 and NT$60,000, depending on the severity of the flooding.
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