For the second time in just over two months, residents of Siaolin Village (小林), among others, have been left fuming in the wake of a government-sanctioned report on the destruction of their village in August last year because they didn’t like the results of the investigation. On Wednesday, a team of geologists commissioned by the National Science Council (NSC) said that the tens of millions of tonnes of mud that buried the village during Typhoon Morakot was the result of Mount Siandu’s (獻肚山) unstable geological composition, compounded by the heavy rainfall brought by the typhoon. The scientists said they could not rule out that the explosives used to construct a water diversion tunnel had contributed to the collapse because they hadn’t investigated the issue since a Public Construction Commission (PCC) report released on Feb. 1 had concluded that the demolitions had not been a contributing factor. The PCC report noted that 1,856mm of rain fell in 72 hours in Siaolin, 156mm more than the area could theoretically withstand.
Siaolin survivors, environmentalists and many others have blamed the mudslides on the tunnel project. Tainan County Council Speaker Wu Chien-pao (吳健保) said on Aug. 21 last year that residents had opposed the project from the very beginning because of fears that blasting could leave the surrounding area unstable. The Water Resources Agency, however, has vehemently defended the project, despite it being fined for failing to obtain permission for part of the work.
The day of the release of the NSC report also saw the Green Party Taiwan issue a warning over a threat to mountainous areas in Nantou County from overdevelopment and excessive logging by tea farmers and property developers in areas near the Jhuoshe Forest Trail (卓社林道) and the catchment area of the Sun Moon Lake Reservoir. The party said that Nantou risked becoming “the next Siaolin.”
Taiwan has had more than its share of disasters, many of which have been a fatal combination of the forces of nature and human error, such as the 1997 Lincoln Mansions tragedy that killed 28 people and the collapse of schools and other low-level buildings during the 921 Earthquake, which killed more than 2,400 people.
We may never know for sure exactly what triggered the Siaolin mudslides — at least to everybody’s satisfaction — but we do know that Taiwan’s unique topography has left it vulnerable to a host of natural disasters, from its location in Typhoon Alley to the tectonic effects (ie, earthquakes) of its location along the edge of the Eurasian and Philippine Sea plates. This uniqueness led David Petley, a Durham University professor — on this very page in August last year — to hail Taiwan’s “almost mythical status” among landslide researchers because of its “extraordinary natural susceptibility to landslides and debris flows.”
He urged Taiwan to, among other steps, create a national disaster management agency to coordinate both disaster risk reduction and disaster response, implement a comprehensive national plan for managing slopes, expand research into the natural processes that create hazards in mountainous areas and ensure that the research results are included in the planning and management process. These are all long-term efforts that could take years to pay off. They run counter to the “firefighting” mode of crisis management that has long been the hallmark of Taiwan’s government, as well as the quick-fix mentality of politicians and the tourism-development agendas of many local governments and businesses.
The search for answers to the Siaolin and other disasters should not delay efforts to improve disaster prevention and response as well as environmental management capabilities on both national and local level. Nor should we allow turf battles between government agencies, political ambitions, special-interest groups or the rallying cry of “economic development” to stand in the way.
Is a new foreign partner for Taiwan emerging in the Middle East? Last week, Taiwanese media reported that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) secretly visited Israel, a country with whom Taiwan has long shared unofficial relations but which has approached those relations cautiously. In the wake of China’s implicit but clear support for Hamas and Iran in the wake of the October 2023 assault on Israel, Jerusalem’s calculus may be changing. Both small countries facing literal existential threats, Israel and Taiwan have much to gain from closer ties. In his recent op-ed for the Washington Post, President William
Taiwan-India relations appear to have been put on the back burner this year, including on Taiwan’s side. Geopolitical pressures have compelled both countries to recalibrate their priorities, even as their core security challenges remain unchanged. However, what is striking is the visible decline in the attention India once received from Taiwan. The absence of the annual Diwali celebrations for the Indian community and the lack of a commemoration marking the 30-year anniversary of the representative offices, the India Taipei Association and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center, speak volumes and raise serious questions about whether Taiwan still has a coherent India
A stabbing attack inside and near two busy Taipei MRT stations on Friday evening shocked the nation and made headlines in many foreign and local news media, as such indiscriminate attacks are rare in Taiwan. Four people died, including the 27-year-old suspect, and 11 people sustained injuries. At Taipei Main Station, the suspect threw smoke grenades near two exits and fatally stabbed one person who tried to stop him. He later made his way to Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store near Zhongshan MRT Station, where he threw more smoke grenades and fatally stabbed a person on a scooter by the roadside.
Recent media reports have again warned that traditional Chinese medicine pharmacies are disappearing and might vanish altogether within the next 15 years. Yet viewed through the broader lens of social and economic change, the rise and fall — or transformation — of industries is rarely the result of a single factor, nor is it inherently negative. Taiwan itself offers a clear parallel. Once renowned globally for manufacturing, it is now best known for its high-tech industries. Along the way, some businesses successfully transformed, while others disappeared. These shifts, painful as they might be for those directly affected, have not necessarily harmed society
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