Serious Flooding and Landslides as Autumn Typhoons Batter Taiwan

On the evening of Tuesday October 13th, the Central Weather Bureau issued a warning for the first strong typhoon of the year. Although the typhoon, named Zeb, weakened as it crossed Luzon in the Philippines, it was still powerful enough to inflict many casualties and cause severe flooding and mudslides in Taiwan.

No sooner had Typhoon Zeb started to leave, than medium-strength Typhoon Babs formed in the South China Sea. Although Babs did not strike Taiwan directly, its heavy peripheral rains, which caused major flooding around the island, added insult to injury. These two autumn typhoons have once again brought Taiwan's perennial problems of land use and poor planning back into the limelight.

Although Zeb's assault lasted less than two days, Taiwan was plunged into misery and suffering, as landslides ruined homes and left residents dead. Damage to property was considerable and, once again, public safety was shown to be extremely precarious.

Greater Taipei, where flooding and mudslides were widespread, was one of the hardest hit areas. Two homes on a hillside in the Mount Chi-nan district of Neihu were swept away on October 16th, by a landslide which buried five people alive. The chief culprit is suspected to be poor drainage at a disused military firing range on top of the hill. The Shihlin District Prosecutor's Office is carrying out an investigation, and has not ruled out other possible causes, such as illegal logging, or that the drainage system for the whole area is inadequate.

On October 18th, a mudslide at a landfill site in the mountainous Tenglin Road area of Wuku in Taipei County swept away five houses and a factory. The county government mobilized a rescue party of some 750 people and four lives were saved, but seven other people died.

The landfill site was opened only in July last year, to accommodate ash produced by the refuse incinerator at Hsintien. Long before the disaster, the Administrative District Office sent a water pump to the scene, after local villagers complained about fetid water seeping into the residential district. This still failed to prevent the accident.

Taipei County Government has commissioned structural engineers to carry out a thorough investigation into the incident's causes, including the provincial Department of Environmental Protection's approval of the landfill site and the handling of the contract by the Wuku Administrative District Office. Taipei County chief Su Tseng-chang wants the investigation to include the county government itself, and the Panchiao District Prosecutor's Office has already appointed two prosecutors to the case.

Typhoon Zeb also brought severe flooding to Hsichih in Taipei County, causing sharp rises in the level of the Keelung River and flooding of downtown districts. Three people were killed and more than 10,000 homes across the township were inundated, as were the local fire department and police station, Wutu railway station and other public buildings. Water levels in Wutu rose by more than five meters, provoking local residents to pun that they lived in a neighborhood of the "highest water."

It never rains but it pours, and only ten days later, while the townspeople of Hsichih were still cleaning up their homes, they once again experienced devastating flooding, this time caused by Typhoon Babs' heavy rains. During a visit by Vice Premier Liu Chao-shiuan, the local people, exasperated by the effects of two calamities in quick succession, aimed a torrent of invective against the government's inappropriate planning and poor preventative measures. Some people blamed the flooding on inadequacies in straightening work carried out on downstream sections of the Keelung River, causing flooding further upstream.

Director of the Water Resources Bureau, Hsu Shiang-kueen, suggests that the most significant factor in altering the flow of watercourses into fewer, larger channels, has been excessive development in Hsichih. In particular, he cites the unrestricted land clearance and construction of two-thirds of Hsichih on hillsides. Over the last two years, the Water Resources Bureau has allocated NT$400 million for emergency flood control work on the Hsichih section of the Keelung River. Unfortunately, due to problems in acquiring riverbank land following urban development, and difficulties in finding landfill sites for waste earth, the projects have barely progressed. Learning lessons from these two consecutive floodings, Hsu Shiang-kueen suggests that the Keelung River should be treated as an important part of the national infrastucture, and that the government should change land-allocation procedures and speed up flood control engineering work.

Nevertheless, situations where it is difficult to take such preventative measures are common throughout the country. Many of the districts reporting damage this time also suffered flooding and subsidence during Typhoon Herb two years ago and Typhoon Winnie last year. Illustrating his point with the many lives lost to this typhoon, Shieh Cheng-lun, Director of the Disaster Prevention Research Center, says that at present there are some 500 sites in danger of landslides in 18 cities and counties across Taiwan. As a precautionary measure, in July of this year, the Central Government decided to push forward a plan to identify areas at risk from landslides, but again, budget shortages have delayed its implementation.

An even more fundamental problem, however, is inappropriate land use, which has seen no improvement in recent years. With this in mind, and in the wake of Typhoon Zeb, Justice Minister Cheng Chung-mo personally inspected damage to land at Wulai and Taoyuan. He urged relevant authorities to rigorously investigate cases contravening regulations aimed at preservation of national land. A nationwide system of investigation and arrest will be set up by the State Public Prosecutor General's Office, Supreme Court, imposing heavy penalties on those involved in damaging the nation's land through unlawful clearance, construction and quarrying. The office will also investigate whether there is collusion between corrupt government authorities and unscrupulous speculators. Control Yuan members Liang Shang-yung, Huang Chao-heng and others have put themselves forward to investigate the many disasters in Taipei City and County, but it remains to be seen whether such actions will improve land development.

Such efforts come too late for those who died in this typhoon. Premier Vincent Siew stated with anguish that a situation where sudden rains could cause devastation and even deaths must not be allowed to happen again. He has instructed the Council of Agriculture not only to immediately investigate which places are in danger of mudslides, but also to establish a warning system. He has also asked relevant ministries and commissions to draw up plans for flood control work on the Tamsui River system as quickly as possible. Furthermore, he has requested that the Ministry of the Interior and the Council of Agriculture enforce strict compliance with laws relating to land-use management and erosion control. He has emphasized that hill preservation and flood control are the joint responsibility of central and local government, and that government bodies at all levels should thoroughly review their flood control measures.

Zeb and Babs have both gone, leaving great destruction across northern districts. There have been at least 32 deaths islandwide, and 13 people are still missing. After the repeated devastation caused by the assaults of Typhoons Herb, Winnie, Zeb and Babs, and with the Central Weather Bureau pointing out that even though autumn has begun the Western Pacific is still capable of producing typhoons, the people of Taiwan hardly dare imagine what disasters the next typhoon might bring.

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Typhoon Zeb's downpour transformed Hsichih's Tatung Road into a Venetian canal overnight. (courtesy of Min Sheng Pao)