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Military starts grim typhoon work in Taiwan

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-22 09:01

TAIPEI: More than 600 people were listed as either dead or missing on Friday as the military began digging up bodies buried deep beneath mud and rocks following Taiwan's most deadly typhoon.

Family members and friends of lost loved ones gather on Friday in Hsiaolin village in Taiwan's Kaohsiung, for a memorial ceremony to remember those who died in landslides following Typhoon Morakot. Chen Xinhan [China Daily]

The island's disaster center had logged 153 deaths by Friday as a result of Typhoon Morakot. Some 464 people were missing and feared buried in landslides that wiped out parts of many villages in the mountainous south.

Local media outlets speculated Taiwan was heading for a "cabinet" reshuffle following intense criticism of the government's response to massive floods, the most severe in 50 years, caused by the typhoon dumping record rainfall between Aug 7 and 9.

Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou's popularity plummeted amid widespread claims that the response was too slow and chaotic.

On Friday, he gave the order to the military to begin digging up bodies.

"He knows it's hard, but he hopes it can be done," spokesman Tony Wang said as Ma visited villages where relatives searched for family members under debris tens of meters thick that had obliterated houses. "The military will do everything possible."

Hsinkai, a village where 32 were feared buried, will be unearthed within a week, army Major General Hu Jui-chou said.

But survivors from the hardest-hit village of Hsiaolin, where hundreds are presumed buried, have not decided whether they want the military to dig for bodies, Wang said.

Engineers assembled the first of 1,000 prefabricated homes donated by the mainland that will be used to resettle thousands left homeless in hard-hit Pingtung county. US military helicopters also continued to lift construction equipment into remote areas.

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Ma said the island government would investigate the response to Morakot by early September and come up with names of those responsible for any mistakes.

His approval rating has sunk to 16 percent and three senior "cabinet" officials have tendered their resignations in recent days.

The island government on Thursday approved a special budget of NT$100 billion ($3.12 billion) for typhoon relief and reconstruction work during the next three years and said it would submit it to "parliament" by the end of the week.

The government forecast Taiwan's economy would shrink by an extra 0.24 percentage points to 4.04 percent for 2009 because of the impact of Morakot.

The typhoon dumped more than 3 m of rain on the island, triggering floods and mudslides that tore through houses and buildings, ripped up roads and smashed bridges.

It was the worst typhoon to strike Taiwan, Ma said, adding that the scale of the damage was more severe than a 1959 typhoon that killed 667 people and left around 1,000 missing.

The deadliest natural disaster in the island's history was a 7.6-magnitude earthquake that claimed around 2,400 lives in Sept 1999.