Walking in deserted streets lit only by a few streetlights on a summer evening, it is easy to imagine that one is in a remote and wild place. Yet this is exactly what Kukuan (谷關), formerly one of central Taiwan's most popular hot spring attractions, looks like now.
Located in Taichung County's Poai township and connected to the Central Cross-Island Highway, Kukuan has long been a famous attraction for travelers because of its two nearby forest resorts, Dragon Valley and Eight Immortals Mountain. Kukuan became an even more popular spot after residents developed the area's rich hot spring resources.
But over the past five years, Kukuan was devastated by a series of natural disasters -- the 921 Earthquake, Typhoon Toraji in 2001 and Tropical Storm Mindulle earlier this month.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
This storm produced floodwaters and mudslides that severely damaged the tourism industry, especially in Nantou and Taichung counties. According to the Council of Agriculture, the worst damage occurred in mountainous regions such as Sungho and Lishan in Taichung County and Hsinyi and Jenai in Nantou County.
"I think hot spring lovers will come back as soon as the damaged roads are fully restored," said Liu Chia-chih (劉家熾), deputy general manager of Kukuan Hotel, a large hot spring hotel in Kukuan.
Summer is traditionally a peak season for Liu's business, and he said his hotel rooms were all booked until the recent storm struck the region.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The lack of consumer confidence has created a crisis for the town's main business.
Heavy rains brought by the storm flushed rocks and sand previously loosened by the earthquake down to the Tachia River that runs through the town.
Mudslides toppled more than 200 homes, or a third of the town's households, as well as damaging roads, bridges and other infrastructure such as power, water and phone lines, making the picturesque resort suddenly quiet.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
A part of the town still has no fixed-line phone service, and seven out of 13 large hot spring hotels are gone.
The entire building housing the Kaha Hot Spring Hotel disappeared as the land where it stood sank into the water, and the Royal Hotel was half submerged in water.
Landslides also clogged hot spring pipelines, making operators draw water from hot spring wells before reconstruction is completed.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Even in such conditions, Liu said that Kukuan's hotels have drummed up promotional tactics, and he hopes the empty pools and hotels will be full again by the month's end.
To revitalize their business, Kukuan hotels began to provide discounts to tourists on July 17, cutting the prices by more than half from the original rates.
"Tourists need not be scared by the exaggerated media reports of the past two weeks," he said.
While large businesses hold onto their optimism, small home-hotel operators and residents who are still busy moving rocks and mud out of their tottering homes do not share such a positive outlook.
"It will take a while to win back people's confidence in this place," said the owner of a small lodge surnamed Lee. "Besides, who would want to spend holidays in a place where local residents are still living in debris?"
With candles in several corners for light, Lee's lodge was half-destroyed as floods and a mudslide wrecked its lower levels. Lee also runs a campsite on his back hill, but it is now occupied by stones and mud.
"In all my 70 years of living here, I have never seen such a horrible scene," he sighed. "Of course I'd like to move to a safer place, but no one would be willing to buy my land and house."
Should nature take all the blame for this disaster?
Lee said that after the 921 Earthquake paralyzed the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government has sought to repair the main road that used to transport thou-sands of tourists to the region. Yet workers dumped construction waste materials in the river, which also received falling stones during the earthquake. More rocks and sand have since accumulated in the Tachia River, lifting the riverbed up by at least 12m, he said.
But the government was not aware of the issue and failed to occasionally draw off water from Deji Reservoir to wash away the sludge for the economic benefit of the hydroelectric power plants along the river, and this resulted in the town's inundation this time, Lee said.
Another lifelong resident in the community had the same complaint.
Wu Hung-mu (吳弘慕), a grocery owner who was cleaning his shattered home after an excavator shoveled out debris that destroyed the entire roof, said he is doing exactly the same thing as twice before in the previous five years. Wu saw the gravest loss this time, and estimated he will spend NT$2 million to NT$3 million to have his home back.
"I can't help worrying whenever heavy rains come," Wu said. "All my property that I strived for since I was a young boy is gone."
Long a mountain climber in the region, Wu said the forest upstream of the river is a cutting area. The government deforested the area years before the 921 Earthquake. However, the Council of Agriculture's forestry bureau failed to clear the dead wood as well as well as to take care of the new trees, he said.
The result is that the dead wood drifted with the mud because the new trees were incapable of firmly gripping the soil, Wu said.
An officer at the Tungshih Forestry Bureau that oversees the forest refused to reveal his name, but admitted that the bureau did deforest and replant the area.
He refused to comment on whether the bureau had maintained the new forest sufficiently, and said he had no idea where the massive amount of dead wood now heaped along the riverbank came from.
"Even though I know the government should take part of the responsibility for disaster this time, I only blame it all on nature in my mind or I can't sleep at night," Wu said.
Rain and floods washed away Kukuan people's homes, but not their faith in their homeland or their hopes for the future.
Lin Wei-kuang (林維光), a general secretary of Jenai township, said that despite the government's suggestion that the whole village should be relocated after Typhoon Toraji hit, most of them said they want to stand on their own feet again -- and on their own soil.
This spirit was shown by Fan Hsiu-feng (范鏽鳳), another grocery store owner.
"No matter how bad the situation is, we'll always keep our chins up and guard our homes," Fan said with a big smile.
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