President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) called for the enactment of a national land planning law yesterday as part of an effort to prevent a repeat of the disaster that followed Typhoon Morakot in August.
The law should put public safety first and prohibit or restrict the development of vulnerable areas, Ma said in his National Day address at the Presidential Office.
Morakot claimed at least 700 lives in early August and caused Taiwan’s worst flooding in 50 years. Ma was forced to reshuffle the Cabinet early last month over criticism of his government because of its slow response to the Morakot aftermath. Then-premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) resigned to take responsibility for the delayed evacuation of people living in mountain villages.
Ma yesterday said that climate change should be taken into consideration when reconstructing Morakot disaster areas and rebuilding waterways, as well as in land management planning.
Another lesson that Taiwan has learned from the typhoon is that disaster preparedness is more important than disaster relief, he said.
The government has therefore launched reforms of current disaster preparedness systems, with a focus on strengthening coordination and communications between central and local governments, training and drilling local government units in disaster preparedness measures and raising awareness of the importance of disaster preparedness, Ma said.
“If we prepare for every typhoon as a possible Morakot and every outbreak of infectious disease as another SARS epidemic, then the damage can certainly be reduced,” he said.
RSS