As I arrived at the train station to catch the first southbound High Speed Rail of the day on a recent morning, I found volunteer rescue teams were already waiting for the same train. A lady at a concession stand told me the scene had been the same for the past 12 days.
Well-equipped members of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation were neatly dressed in uniforms, while members of the Dharma Drum Mountain religious group were in high spirits.
Volunteers came from all quarters, including the Buddhist Fo Guang Shan Monastery, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan and the Taiwan chapter of the Salvation Army.
I ran into two students from National Taiwan University on the train.
One of them happened to be my student. The other was a young woman sitting next to me, sneaking glances at former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) in front of her.
She wrote in her journal: “Today is a very meaningful day. If I didn’t go, I would regret it tomorrow.”
I asked her where she was heading, and she said she was going to volunteer at a disaster shelter with her classmates. My student had offered to tutor children from the disaster areas. Although they had different tasks ahead of them, they shared one important characteristic — a heart filled with love, courage and enthusiasm.
There are many more people like that out there. They are Taiwan’s hope.
These disaster relief efforts have once again shown the strength of civil society. We should praise and appreciate these volunteers. At the same time, we should not jump to the conclusion that the government can only offer limited assistance and that nongovernmental resources are sufficient.
The government let the public down because it is incompetent and arrogant. It has failed to show sympathy for disaster victims and only cares about its own image and interests. This has made the public lose hope in the government.
The government still has much work to do and floodwaters have not receded in some areas.
Although mud and silt cannot be removed from the roads and houses in just a few days, soldiers and volunteers have been working hard on cleaning up the areas and will be finished before long. But when will the destroyed roads and flooded farmland, orchards and fish farms be restored? Unlike the disaster relief for the 921 Earthquake, where people could rebuild their destroyed houses or buy new ones, Typhoon Morakot has destroyed land and property that people depended on for their survival.
The situation in the mountain areas is even more serious because the only hope for family members of those buried by mudslides is to find the bodies of their loved ones. We should applaud those rescue workers who have been searching for bodies despite rain and heat, and we should not forget that they also need relief.
The most difficult task for the government is to decide whether to allow the 5,000 displaced residents to return to their destroyed homes. Should those who are still trapped in isolated villages also be relocated?
When the first phase of the emergency rescue is over and all the equipment has been removed, will there still be helicopters parachuting provisions and transporting manpower to the disaster area? If another typhoon were to come, would the government be able to evacuate residents from endangered mountainous areas?
Villages were inundated by floodwater and bridges and riverbeds were covered in mud. How far will the government go in its cleanup efforts?
Even though people have been relocated, riverbeds still need dredging. Otherwise, the lives of residents in the lower reaches of rivers will still be threatened.
When dealing with devastated villages in high-risk areas, the government cannot just relocate residents by force. Since Aboriginal history, culture, community and life are all correlated, the government must carry out a comprehensive assessment and engage in dialogue with residents before it makes a decision.
The government could first build prefabricated houses in safe places near the original Aboriginal communities, where the disaster victims would stay for a year. When their quality of living is secured, the government could form an ad hoc committee to discuss the relocation of villages.
The central government must consult with local governments as soon as possible on which rivers need to be dredged, whether destroyed roads and bridges should be rebuilt and which villages are unsuitable for living.
Otherwise it will be difficult for local governments to move on to the third phase of post-disaster reconstruction.
The government should be more efficient in its rescue efforts. This is not something that can be done merely by replacing the National Fire Agency with a disaster relief and prevention agency, by promoting the accomplishments of rescue work by the government and nongovernmental organizations, or by holding more international press conferences to explain delays in the relief effort.
Lin Wan-i is a professor in the Department of Social Work at National Taiwan University.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
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