The majority of air defense shelters do not meet standards, Taiwan Statebuilding Party (TSP) members said on Wednesday last week, criticizing the National Police Agency (NPA) for failing to provide adequate information to the public.
Party officials and volunteers have in the past month conducted on-site inspections of more than 200 air defense shelters in northern Taiwan, and have found numerous flaws and subpar conditions, TSP secretary-general Wu Hsin-tai (吳欣岱) told a news conference.
Only 20 percent conform to the required standards, while they found recurring problems during their inspections, including “erroneous location and confusing data on the map,” “dirty or dilapidated shelter entrance signage,” and “lacking proper management and control at the shelter entrance,” Wu said.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
The NPA lists about 105,000 air defense shelters throughout the nation, but “in our inspection, we found the actual locations were way off from the location indicated on the digital map. The largest discrepancy was off by more than 300m,” Wu said.
“Also in our on-site visit, most shelter signage is merely a piece of paper. So people at these buildings have to spend time and effort to update the shelter signage,” she said.
“Most shelters are in the basement. In the event of a major disaster that necessitates evacuation, would the building’s security personnel ensure the entrance is open, any time during the 24-hour cycle, for local residents to go inside the shelter?” Wu asked.
Kuma Academy cofounder Ho Cheng-hui (何澄輝) said Taiwan must take lessons from other countries on how to improve resilience during major emergency events.
“An air defense shelter is not just a space underground. When large numbers of people take shelter in the basement, it is required to have proper air circulation and drinking water systems, and basic infrastructure set-ups are important, but we have yet to see these in government plans,” Ho said.
TSP Tainan chapter director Wu Yi-chieh (吳依潔) said that most evacuation plans consist of recording the location data on file and making checks at some shelters.
“Overall these are lacking in proper management, and have insufficient guidance and public education for local people to have better awareness,” she said.
“Right now it relies on residents to report shelters not meeting the criteria, or if provisions of the Building Act (建築法) have been contravened, then local police would come to deal with the complaint,” she added.
“We urge the local city and county governments to first introduce relevant regulations and administrative orders, and mandate building management committees to implement them. These would include supervision of entrance opening, crowd control, refurbishment of needed equipment, and regular checks,” Wu Yi-chieh said.
Chuang Kuo-yu (莊國煜), founder of software firm GeoThings Inc, based in Hsinchu County, said that he has launched Line groups based on the concept of “disaster prevention and safeguarding the local community,” so people can update air defense shelter information, including GPS locations, as well as being able to upload photographs.
“We invite everyone to inspect shelters near their homes to have more complete information on air defense shelters in local neighborhoods, so that we can build up a more accurate and more useful digital map to locate all the shelters. We are doing this from the grassroots, going up to higher levels of society to awaken people to the importance and needs of whole-of-society defense planning,” Wu Hsin-tai said.
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