Heavy downpours on Sunday evening brought flooding and landslides to more than half of Chiayi County, blocking many key roadways. Areas including Jhongpu (中埔), Singang (新港), Minsyong (民雄), Jhuci (竹崎) and Fanlu (番路) townships had more than 200mm of rain on Sunday evening. Firefighters rescued 32 people near the Jhonghe Exchange along Provincial Highway No. 82 in Shueishang Township (水上).
However, damage and several deaths have led the public to accuse the government of failing to issue an advance warning. In the face of the public’s grievances, the government probably feels that its hands were tied, as mudslides are difficult to predict, even with the most modern technology.
This does not mean that landslides are beyond human control. The Landslide Susceptibility Index (LSI) was adopted to map and evaluate landslide susceptibility and to classify areas into five susceptibility zones: “very low,” “low,” “moderate,” “high” and “very high.” As mudslides are caused by a combination of factors, such as soil properties, geology, and soil and water conservation, prediction is a great challenge. The recent unexpected landslide in Jhuci is one such example. On Aug. 4, Nantou County’s Renai Township (仁愛) also experienced a major mudslide.
Nevertheless, prediction is still possible, as precipitation monitoring provides a certain degree of reliability. Hourly, daily and accumulated precipitation data are an important index for landslides. Once precipitation reaches a certain level in mountainous regions, the government should launch evacuation operations as a precaution. To better predict landslides, the following three factors could play a decisive role in the accuracy of predictions:
The first is widespread public awareness and education. Landslide incidents have shown that people’s disaster awareness, sensitivity and preparedness play a huge role in reducing loss of life, personal injury and damage from natural disasters. Precipitation monitoring provides officials and the public with the easiest index for predicting landslides and floods. The Agency of Rural Development and Soil and Water Conservation provides landslide-prone areas with rain gauges so that communities can monitor rainfall and take corresponding action.
Second, education and training are crucial in landslide predictions. While reading weather and precipitation data require professional training, the public should be taught basic knowledge and skills on the subject. This education should be coupled with the government’s disaster-resistant community policy promotion so that the public and community can have systematic learning and a higher awareness of disaster prevention and reduction.
Third, communities should form stronger ties with authorities. As the authorities are responsible for issuing warnings in landslide-prone areas, when the public has close connections with the authorities, they can ask for help to read the data and increase prediction accuracy.
According to my experience, the more proactive the community is, the more help they can get from the authorities in the event of disasters.
Even though landslides are difficult to predict, there are still some clues to follow for preliminary assessments, but these have to be built upon after the implementation of the three aforementioned factors.
Yang Yung-nane is a political science professor at National Cheng Kung University and a member of the board of directors of Transparency International Chinese Taipei.
Translated by Rita Wang
There has been much catastrophizing in Taiwan recently about America becoming more unreliable as a bulwark against Chinese pressure. Some of this has been sparked by debates in Washington about whether the United States should defend Taiwan in event of conflict. There also were understandable anxieties about whether President Trump would sacrifice Taiwan’s interests for a trade deal when he sat down with President Xi (習近平) in late October. On top of that, Taiwan’s opposition political leaders have sought to score political points by attacking the Lai (賴清德) administration for mishandling relations with the United States. Part of this budding anxiety
The diplomatic dispute between China and Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments in the Japanese Diet continues to escalate. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong (傅聰) wrote that, “if Japan dares to attempt an armed intervention in the cross-Strait situation, it would be an act of aggression.” There was no indication that Fu was aware of the irony implicit in the complaint. Until this point, Beijing had limited its remonstrations to diplomatic summonses and weaponization of economic levers, such as banning Japanese seafood imports, discouraging Chinese from traveling to Japan or issuing
On Nov. 8, newly elected Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) and Vice Chairman Chi Lin-len (季麟連) attended a memorial for White Terror era victims, during which convicted Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spies such as Wu Shi (吳石) were also honored. Cheng’s participation in the ceremony, which she said was part of her efforts to promote cross-strait reconciliation, has trapped herself and her party into the KMT’s dark past, and risks putting the party back on its old disastrous road. Wu, a lieutenant general who was the Ministry of National Defense’s deputy chief of the general staff, was recruited
Tokyo-Beijing relations have been rapidly deteriorating over the past two weeks as China tries to punish Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks about Taiwan earlier this month, and the off-ramp to this conflict is yet to be seen. Takaichi saying that a “Taiwan contingency” could cause a “situation threatening Japan’s survival” — which would allow Japan to act in self-defense — has drawn Beijing’s ire and sparked retaliatory measures. Her remark did not gain public attention until Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) made an apparent threat to behead her. The two sides lodged protests against each
RSS