An objective comparison
Last month, western Japan also experienced torrential rains, with as many as 220 people confirmed dead, with over 20,000 households affected.
Among the fatalities, 114 were in Hiroshima, with another 64 from Okayama. According to figures released by the Japan Meteorological Agency, in the 12 consecutive days of heavy rainfall from June 28 to July 8 in western Japan, the highest amount of rainfall was 570.5mm in Uchiguroyama in Akiota in Hiroshima’s Yamagata District, while 565.5mm fell in Onbara in Kagamino, Tomata District, Okayama. An accumulated rainfall of over 500mm each in two districts alone caused almost 200 deaths.
Compare this with the recent torrential rains in central and southern Taiwan in which, according to figures announced by the Central Weather Bureau, we saw 833mm of rainfall in just two days on Aug. 23 and 24, in Zengwen New Village in Tainan’s Nansi [District (楠西)] and 807.5mm in the same period in Yongle Village in Dapu [Township (大埔)], Chiayi County.
In two short days there was considerably more rainfall in central and southern Taiwan than in almost two weeks in Japan’s Hiroshima and Okayama.
Considering the death and devastation caused in those two areas on Japan with less rain and over a longer period, one can only imagine the scale of the disaster that would have been visited upon Tainan and Chiayi County had the local governments in those two areas not have been vigilant in their water control measures.
This is certainly not to say that there isn’t room for improvement considering the damage and misery caused by the flooding. However, neither should the destruction and pain wrought by natural disaster be exploited by the media and opportunistic politicians looking for a reason to score political points.
Here I refer, for example, to how local disaster victims and the media accused President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of failing to empathize with the victims because she traveled around the affected area in an armored vehicle when she visited the disaster area to assess the situation, and did not get out and walk around in the flooded streets with everyone else.
The Presidential Office made clear that Tsai had not traveled to the affected areas in an armored vehicle, but that this was the vehicle of choice to move around the disaster-hit areas most efficiently, and that she had, indeed, got out of the vehicle when she was assessing the situation in specific locations.
It is only natural that the president cannot visit every single flood-hit area of the country. And yet sections of the media and certain politicians insisted on making a meal out of the armored vehicle thing.
If you make an objective comparison of the situations in Taiwan and Japan, you might come to a different conclusion from these people.
Tsai Chuo-li
Taipei
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