A number of memorial services were held yesterday as the nation paid tribute to the more than 700 people killed or missing in Typhoon Morakot a year ago, one of the country’s worst natural disasters.
Morakot struck Taiwan between Aug. 7 and Aug. 9 last year, bringing powerful winds and torrential rain. The typhoon wreaked havoc in mountainous regions, triggered landslides and buried estimated 400 people in Kaohsiung County’s Siaolin Village (小林) alone.
Morakot dumped a record 3m of rain and some experts have since warned that global warming could trigger another similarly powerful storm in a year or two.
“Last year’s Morakot brought Taiwan the worst flooding in 100 years and caused havoc ... the unusual torrential rains were a signal of climate change,” Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) said at a ceremony in Taipei.
Also held during the event were a disaster relief drill, a demonstration of disaster relief skills and an exhibition on relief and reconstruction in the wake of Morakot.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) each attended a different evening memorial service held in Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County to commemorate the Morakot victims.
While the opposition blamed the Ma administration for what they alleged was a slow response to the flooding, Ma has termed the typhoon a “painful lesson.”
Over the past year, the authorities have built 1,480 new houses accommodating nearly 6,000 people, according to an Executive Yuan statement.
The homeless — mostly Aborigines — are unhappy at the government’s slow response. About 600 Aborigines staged an overnight rally outside the Presidential Office on Saturday to protest the resettlement plans.
The government faced a wave of public anger over its handling of the disaster, plunging Ma into his worst political crisis since taking office in 2008.
His approval rating plummeted to 16 percent in the aftermath of the typhoon, compared with an all-time high of 79 percent in the days after his election victory in March 2008.
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