The Control Yuan censured Liu Chien-fang (劉建芳), the mayor of Kaohsiung County’s Jiasian Township (甲仙), for not properly carrying out his disaster prevention duties during landslides caused by Typhoon Morakot that led to the deaths of more than 400 people in Siaolin Village (小林).
The Control Yuan censured Liu by a six to five vote on Thursday.
Siaolin Village was almost completely wiped out when the typhoon triggered massive landslides in August that left more than 400 residents buried alive.
Control Yuan members Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄) and Chao Chang-ping (趙昌平), who proposed action against Liu, said he should be held responsible for the tragedy because he ignored several warnings that called for evacuating the village and thus failed in his duty to protect the public.
Chao said that he tried to call the township’s emergency operation center via telephone several times on Aug. 7 and Aug. 8 when the situation was most critical in Jiasian, but no one answered the phone.
Huang said Liu was not aware that Siaolin was buried by landslides early on the morning of Aug. 8 until two days later.
“[Liu] failed to fulfill his duty to protect storm victims,” he said.
Liu said that the accusations are not fair.
“There are only six township mayors across the country who were honored in public by President Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] for efforts in rescuing Typhoon Morakot victims, and I was one of them,” he said. “If I should be censured, was the presidential honor just a joke?”
“You can check the telephone record; I called Siaolin Village chief Liu Jen-ho [劉仁和] six times on Aug. 8. The village was buried because of landslides, and you should find out why the landslides occurred before holding anybody responsible,” he said.
Liu Chien-fang also said that if no action was taken against Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興), who was abroad at the time, it was not fair to censure only him. A motion to censure Yang was also proposed during the meeting, but was voted down six to five.
After the Control Yuan announced its decision, Liu Chien-fang’s case was to be transferred to the Commission on the Disciplinary Sanctions of Functionaries, which will decide what other penalties he might receive.
Typhoon Morakot claimed at least 700 lives and caused the nation’s worst flooding in 50 years. Ma was forced to reshuffle the Cabinet in September over criticism of the government’s response to the Morakot aftermath.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS