President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said there is a potential danger from insufficient military barracks in the north, adding that Taipei City would have been doomed had Typhoon Morakot lashed the north because there would not be enough military bases to shelter displaced typhoon victims.
While the Ministry of National Defense has designated five military zones nationwide, with three of them in Taipei City, Ma said the 10 military barracks in the north can only accommodate about 2,850 people.
Ma made the remark while inspecting two hillside areas prone to mudslides in Taipei City’s Jinanshan (雞南山) and on Songshan Road in Xinyi District (信義) yesterday.
PHOTO: CNA
“The rainfall of Typhoon Morakot was three to four times more than that of Typhoon Nari and we would have had to relocate more than 20,000 people,” he said. “To where would we move them?”
Typhoon Nari brought 1,000mm of rainfall in three days when it slammed northern Taiwan in 2001, while Typhoon Morakot brought 2,600mm when it lashed central and southern Taiwan.
While Ma was addressing the participants at Jinanshan, Ma’s bodyguards were stunned to see Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp chairman Ou Chin-der (歐晉德), who was sitting near Ma, sprint over to Ma and flick away a locust jumping onto Ma’s shirt.
After composing himself, Ma smiled and went on with his speech.
Ma urged the Ministry of National Defense and other government agencies to plan ahead and treat every natural disaster with extreme caution.
“We must think that the next earthquake may be as serious as the 921 Earthquake, the next typhoon as devastating as Typhoon Morakot and the next epidemic as severe as SARS,” he said.
Ma said he visited Hong Kong in 1999 during his stint as Taipei mayor to see how the special administrative zone dealt with mudslides and landslides. He said his visit came on the heels of the collapse of Lincoln Mansions Complex in Taipei County when Typhoon Winnie struck the nation in August 1997.
Ma said he was impressed by the Hong Kong government’s efforts to establish a geological survey database of mudslide-prone areas. Taipei city spent more than NT$50 million (US$1.5 million) establishing a similar data bank.
Taipei City’s Department of Economic Development Commissioner Sherman Chen (陳雄文) said that 55 percent, or 15,004 hectares, of the city’s landscape was on hillsides. More than 500 hillsides suffered significant damage when Typhoon Nari pounded the city in 2001.
After a professional assessment, Chen said the city has categorized hillsides as either high risk, medium risk or low risk. The city began demolishing buildings and relocating residents at the four locations with the highest risk in 2001 and completed the projects in 2005. One of them was located in Jinanshan and another was on Songshan Road in Xinyi District, he said.
Reinforcement projects began at medium risk locations last year and 16 out of 24 of those have been completed, he said.
To better respond to future disasters, Chen said the city is planning to establish a special agency to strengthen the safety management of hillsides. As the City Council has passed the first reading of legislation authorizing the establishment of the agency, Chen said he hoped it would pass the council and become a law during this council session.
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