Thu, Sep 20, 2001 page2

• Taoyuan mayor offers apology

  INADEQUATE RESPONSE President Chen also drew fire from local residents who accused his security guards and officials of hindering relief efforts

  • By Lin Chieh-yu / STAFF REPORTER
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  Taoyuan Mayor Chen Tsung-yi (陳宗義), accompanied by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), knelt on the ground yesterday to apologize for what the residents said were inadequate relief efforts by the city in the wake of Typhoon Nari.

  The president made inspection tours yesterday of badly affected areas in northern and southern Taiwan, including three residential communities in Taoyuan City, which had suffered flash flooding caused by the storm.

  Having listened to residents of the communities, who accused local government officials of ignoring their needs, Chen Tsung-yi engaged in animated debate with them.

  

  Several residential buildings on Yimin Road in Chungli City hang precariously over a ledge after their foundations were eroded by heavy rains and flooding brought by Typhoon Nari.

  PHOTO: HSIEH WU-HSIUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

  In front of the president, the residents said that Mayor Chen always avoided dealing with local residents' problems.

  Mayor Chen, seeing that residents were getting angry with his remarks, suddenly went down on his knees in front of them, saying, "If you think it's all my fault, I apologize."

  President Chen, who had arrived in Taoyuan at 9.30am, half an hour later than scheduled due to traffic congestion, looked on with a grim face but did not comment.

  In order to avoid disrupting relief efforts, the president had not requested that the police department help control traffic prior to his arrival in Taoyuan.

  All government offices and most schools in northern Taiwan reopened yesterday after a two-day closure due to the typhoon.

  The president drew fire from local residents who accused his security guards and officials, as well as accompanying members of the media, of hindering relief efforts.

  "What's the point of your visit?" shouted a woman who had lined up to get clean water from a county government water tanker. "You are just bothering us."

  Taking the woman's hands, President Chen responded, "I am very sorry."

  Many houses in the area, which is low-lying and near the Nankan stream (南崁溪), were flooded or damaged by the torrential rains brought by Nari.

  Yang Hsin-kun (楊馨坤), a neighborhood chief in the 500-household riverside community, blamed former Taoyuan County commissioner and current Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮). He complained that the community flooded every time a typhoon or tropical storm swept through Taoyuan.

  "She claimed to have cleaned up and rebuilt the stream's dikes during the past few years when she was in charge of the county," Yang told President Chen. "But the facts now prove that that was just talk."

  Yang stressed that this time the situation was even worse as raging river waters had proven too much for the dikes and had submerged all nearby regions. He blamed the county government for failing to take effective steps to clean up the Nankan stream and reinforce its drainage system.

  "The inaction of the county government has resulted in the destruction of the river's dikes and the worst flooding ever in the community," Yang said.

  Acting Taoyuan County Magistrate Hsu Yin-shen (許應琛) later quoted Chen as having ordered the county government to increase post-flooding clean-up and rehabilitation work so that residents could resume a normal life as early as possible.

  Later yesterday, Lu inspected her home county but did not respond to Yang's criticism.
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