If you were the owner of property built on or located at the bottom of a dip slope, wouldn’t you want to be informed about the probability of massive landslides that could put your safety and that of your loved ones at risk?
Some people would actually prefer not to be told, because that knowledge could have a negative impact on the valuation of their property and, if made public, could affect their chances of selling their property. Such people — call them penny pinchers — put their pocket book ahead of personal safety.
Let’s ask the question again, with a few modifications.
If you were the owner of property built on or located at the bottom of a dip slope, would you be at ease if friends who paid you a visit while you’re not home, or those who purchased and moved into your property, were buried in a landslide?
Most of us would feel guilty, even if the landslide were a natural disaster.
Still, some would again answer in the negative. While this may sound cold-hearted, it is nevertheless not illegal, as there are no laws prohibiting people from being cold-hearted.
Like cases involving drunk driving, however, putting your life or that of others at risk through negligence should be considered a criminal offense.
When the government uses fluctuations in property value as an excuse not to make public information about residences built on dangerous slopes, it is being hypocritical and irresponsible, or siding with construction companies by toying with innocent people’s lives.
This may not be a clear-cut case, but in all matters, priority should be given to human life.
What is also disturbing is that after the Sept. 21, 1999, earthquake, some legislators called on the government to make this type of information public.
To date, those efforts have proven fruitless.
A government of and for the people shouldn’t shirk its responsibility on minimizing the risk to the lives of its citizens — even if it is within one’s constitutional right to reside in a community that is located on or near a dangerous slope.
When the Taipei City Government discovered that 30 of 135 apartment complexes located on the city’s 20,000 slopes are built on dangerous dip slopes, it should have intervened immediately and refused to grant licenses to land developers or construction companies. Doing so would have saved a lot of money and prevented the development of potentially deadly property projects.
Furthermore, even local governments that have only recently realized the potential lethality of dip slopes to residential projects should be held accountable. Post-facto knowledge notwithstanding, construction licenses were granted and whoever seeks compensation from the government should have their wish granted when nature strikes.
Neither red tape, lack of initial information nor business interests or any other consideration can be placed ahead of human life. Outdated regulations should be amended as soon as possible so that the information that construction firms and residents need to make the proper assessments regarding a location’s safety is available to them — and made public — before a catastrophe occurs.
Once again, it took a disaster to make debate on that matter a hot issue. Thus is human nature. In the name of those who died on the Formosa Freeway, let us use this wake-up call to once and for all fix the system and make this country safer for all.
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