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Rescue attempts too slow, say isolated Taiwanese villagers

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-14 10:05

LIUKUEI, Taiwan: Hundreds of villagers fled their homes minutes before a flood-created lake burst Thursday.

It came as the Taiwanese military deployed thousands more troops to rescue and deliver supplies to survivors from remote villages devastated by last weekend's typhoon.

But many villagers complained the government was too slow to mobilize the rescue and cleanup effort, saying more victims could have been saved if they had moved sooner and faster.

The government said its operations have been hampered because many areas of the country were cut off when roads and bridges collapsed, though "interior minister" Liao Liao-yi said troops on foot had reached several villages on Wednesday.

Until then, rescuers had relied solely on helicopters to reach the worst-hit areas and authorities Thursday requested larger choppers from foreign governments capable of carrying earth-moving equipment and shelters. Some 14,000 villagers have been rescued - including 600 Thursday (pictured above) - since Typhoon Morakot dumped more than 2 m of rain, according to the island's disaster relief center. The storm unleashed the worst floods on the island for 50 years.

Another 2,000 villagers, who escaped those floods and were sheltering either in open fields or on higher ground, were still waiting to be ferried to shelters, it said. Several hundred more - no one is sure how many - remain unaccounted for and are feared lost in the mudslides.

Related readings:  Hong Kong does its part to help typhoon victims  Flooding, drought may come in wake of typhoon  Nearly 1,000 found alive in Taiwan after typhoon  Two killed in landslide in typhoon-ravaged E China  Typhoon Morakot eases but kills 6 on mainland

The official death toll in Taiwan stands at 108, with 61 listed as missing. The storm also killed at least 22 people in the Philippines and eight on the Chinese mainland. The military sent 4,000 new troops Thursday to join another 16,000 already working to save thousands of survivors stranded in several villages in the island's south, the "defense ministry" said.

Taiwan has already received offers of financial assistance from the United States, Japan, Singapore and the Chinese mainland. In the southern township of Taoyuan, 500 villagers were told to run to higher ground about 30 minutes before a lake created by floodwaters and landslides burst its banks, an official said, adding two nearby lakes were expected to burst soon. "There would be a massive amount of water flowing down the Laonung River, and we have alerted villagers around to flee," relief official Hsu Chin-biao said.

In Liukuei, scores of private relief vehicles were held up along a narrow, muddy mountain road, waiting for permission to move toward the center of the heavy flooding that devastated isolated villages.

Relief efforts by a number of Buddhist organizations complement the military's work to pluck hundreds of villagers from the affected area. But villagers complained to Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou and other officials who visited this week that the rescue operation was too slow.

"Why does the government say only useless things?" asked a woman anxious to learn the fate of relatives in Kaochung village. "It's been several days, yet no one going to rescue my family."

AP