President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday apologized to residents of southern Taiwan over the damage caused by Typhoon Danas and torrential rains that followed in its wake in his fourth visit to the region since the storm struck last month.
The central government has allotted a NT$56 billion (US$1.88 billion) aid package to repair the damage caused by the typhoon and torrential rain, and enhance regional infrastructure, Lai said at the post-typhoon reconstruction command center in Tainan’s Sinying District (新營).
He also inspected storm-damaged houses and said that he hopes the public would consider the exceptional circumstances of Typhoon Danas when it judges the government’s performance.
Photo: Yang Chin-cheng, Taipei Times
Danas caused severe and unforeseen damage to energy and telecommunications grids in southern Taiwan, he said.
In addition, the three tropical storms that have approached Taiwan this year brought more total rainfall than Typhoon Morakot in 2009, the deadliest storm in the nation’s history, he said.
The government’s aid package — which features agricultural loans and subsidies for repairing damaged structures — aims to address the special challenges presented by the disaster, he said.
Farmers would receive natural disaster compensation in a cash handout upon request without conditions and be exempted from interest on a second mortgage they have for a year, he said.
The compensation rate for damage to fish farms, greenhouses and livestock facilities would be increased to 80 percent from 50 percent, with the local governments being instructed to expedite the process, he said.
Danas damaged about 30,000 structures in Tainan and another 10,000 structures in the rest of southern Taiwan in a record-high number of property damage cases, Lai said.
The central government has made an unprecedented arrangement with contractors in administrative regions to temporarily suspend work on local projects for reassignment to repair buildings in Tainan and Chiayi, he said.
Medium and severely low-income households can receive full subsidies for building repairs, while average-income families would be partially compensated, he said, adding that some construction workers could receive bonuses for making house repairs.
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