Experts urged the government yesterday to prohibit people from living in areas at risk of mudslides.
Hung Hung-chih (洪鴻智), a professor at National Taipei University’s Department of Real Estate and Built Environment, said that because the typhoon season is not yet over, people who have been evacuated from mountainous areas in the wake of Typhoon Morakot should be banned from returning to their homes because of the danger of further mudslides.
Morakot, which battered the island on Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, dumped about 2,500mm of rain — more than a year’s rainfall — on southern Taiwan, triggering the most serious flooding and mudslides in five decades.
Furthermore, Hung said the government’s efforts to seek foreign aid for its search and rescue operation came too late.
“The best window of opportunity to find survivors is within 72 hours of a disaster,” he told the Central News Agency.
The government has come under increasing fire for rejecting foreign aid in the immediate aftermath of the disaster and for waiting several days before flip-flopping on its decision.
Taiwan has amassed a great deal of experience in relief operations since the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, Hung said, adding that unfortunately, this experience has not been translated into standard operating procedures that could help the country improve its disaster relief performance.
“As a result, the government has failed to deal with the present tragedy effectively,” he said.
The top priority now is to accommodate those people whose settlements have been destroyed by mudslides.
Meanwhile, Hsu Shi-jung (徐世榮), a professor at National Chengchi University’s Department of Land Economics, alerted the government to the many barrier lakes formed in valleys by mudslides.
“They could burst under the weight of the water they are holding back, leading to more flooding,” he said.
Both Hung and Hsu warned the government against letting the evacuees return to their mudslide-destroyed settlements, at least during the next three months, when the island is still vulnerable to typhoons.
It will take five years for the terrain in the devastated areas to solidify and only then should reconstruction be considered, the experts said.
They suggested that the government relocate residents of the areas to safe places and help them resettle by finding them jobs so that they do not have to move back into their dangerous mountain settlements.
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