Officials from the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau said that it was not easy to maintain a warning system.
"In Taiwan, steep mountains, fragile land and torrential rains during typhoon season all make the maintenance of mudslide warning stations more challenging," said Lin Jiang-jang (林建章), a bureau official.
"In Japan, no one is allowed to live in the dangerous buffer area," Lin said.
He said that dangerous rivers in Japan were separated from residential areas by shrubbery, trees, and concrete embankments, in that order. In Taiwan, by contrast, it was common for embankments to be built right inside the buffer zones of rivers.
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