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FEATURE : Long road home: helping out after Morakot

For Hsu Jen-hui (徐仁輝) and Hsu Jen-ming (徐仁明), the road home on Aug. 7 was a long one.

On the eve of Father’s Day, held on Aug. 8 in Taiwan, they received a telephone call from home saying that their grandmother was critically ill. The two brothers, who are serving in the military, asked for a leave of absence from their units and readied to go home. However, the highway leading home was blocked by mudslides caused by Typhoon Morakot, which began lashing Taiwan on the same day. They were not able to say goodbye to their grandmother, who died the following day.

On Aug. 9, news of the disaster began to appear on TV, but they saw no reports about their hometown of Jiamu Village (佳暮), a mountainous settlement in Wutai Township (霧台), Pingtung County.

When they called their cousin, Lai Meng-chuan (賴孟傳), he told them that the torrential rain had caused the mountain to collapse, leading to landslides that cut off roads and bridges.

Worried about their parents and community, the two brothers reported the situation to the southern disaster response center and asked for assistance.

On Aug. 10, the two brothers and their cousin embarked on the journey home despite the bad weather. They set off at 4am, bringing medical supplies for chronic illnesses, generators and daily necessities. They first drove, then rode bicycles and then walked because of the bad road conditions.

When they reached Ila settlement at around 7am, they were asked to help in the search for five villagers buried alive by mudslides. The search went on until that ­afternoon, but turned up nothing.

The weather improved on Aug. 11 and helicopters were sent out to search for survivors. The county attempted to airlift Jiamu residents from the isolated village, but found out that there was no landing pad for rescue helicopters.

The two brothers, natives of the Rukai Aboriginal tribe, who the military trained in jungle warfare and outdoor survival skills, requested to be airlifted to Jiamu so they could help build a landing pad.

The relocation effort, which saved the lives of 72 tribal members, took three days to complete. The two brothers and their cousin were the first rescuers to arrive and the last to leave. They were each awarded a medal by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Thursday for their heroic deeds, among a total of 60 soldiers and military officers.

Morakot brought more than a year’s worth of rainfall in just a few days, triggering the most serious flooding and mudslides in 50 years. Fatalities from the disaster were at least 700. The military came under fire for responding too slowly to the disaster. Although Ma is the ­commander-in-chief of the armed forces, then-minister of national ­defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) took the heat and later resigned.

Aside from their military duties, the 34-year-old Hsu Jen-hui and 30-year-old Hsu Jen-ming are members of the Retired Paratrooper Association and Mountain Calamity Relief Association.

Asked to describe how they felt about receiving the award, the 34-year-old said he and his brother felt the honor should go to the entire army. As for what kept them going during the crisis, he said they simply wanted to go home.

Marine Sergeant first class Pan Kuo-ching (潘國清) lost his father, brother, grandparents and 30 other family members in the disaster.

Stationed in Kaohsiung, Pan flew on rescue helicopters over his hometown of Namasiya Township (那瑪夏), Kaohsiung County, but he was unable to get there because of his assignment to other disaster areas. It was not until one week after the disaster struck that he had a chance to return home.

He seemed to have come to terms with desolation when he talked about the loss of his family members.

“As a soldier, my priority is to do the job I am told. It is an obligation that I cannot decline,” he said. “If there is one more person contributing to the relief effort, there is more power.”

Sergeant Tsao Pei-chi (曹沛淇) was one of the soldiers sent to the Aboriginal community of Sinkai (新開) in Liouguei Township (六龜), Kaohsiung County, to help recover bodies buried under mudslides.

To call attention to their plight during rescue efforts in the wake of the disaster, mudslide victims put up a cardboard sign reading “32 people killed, SOS.”

The image was broadcast on TV and published the front pages of newspapers.

Tsao said she and four other female colleagues requested to go to Sinkai two weeks into the disaster.

“We thought if men could do it, we could do it too,” the 21-year-old said.

She said she did not think twice when they were asked to sniff out the bodies with their noses. The unconventional approach, however, was scrapped the next day following public outcry and was later replaced with more scientific means.

Tsao said she did not feel moral suffering or lose sleep because she was well prepared before she took on the mission.

“I just told myself not to think too much and that I was there to do my job,” she said.

Deputy commander of the land force Lee Ching-kuo (李清國) said they sent more than 1,000 soldiers and 40 heavy machines to Sinkai. The excavation project consisted of two stages, the first one focusing on exhuming more than 4 hectares of land. During the second stage, they dug at spots requested by families, he said.

Lee, who also participated in the rescue operations after the 921 Earthquake, said the devastation caused by the 1999 quake could not rival that caused by Morakot because the two disasters were completely different.

“The catastrophe caused by Morakot was the combination of the 921 Earthquake, 87 Flooding [of 1959], foot-and-mouth disease and H1N1 [swine flu],” he said, adding that the area affected by Morakot was bigger, rainfall was heavier and the response was slower.

Lee said he entered the Morakot disaster area on Aug. 8 and completed the mission on Sept. 30. He was also involved in the pre-­emptive deployment of military personnel ahead of Tropical Storm Parma earlier this month. During his two-month involvement in relief work, Lee said he lost 4kg.
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