Disaster scenes, with their images of crying or protesting victims, Taoist priests guiding souls back home and officials and responsible parties apologizing, are often the focus of media attention. But what victims really need in the midst of the chaos is. . . .
With the approach of Typhoon Winnie, the government declared a "typhoon holiday." It was especially quiet on that rainy Monday morning at the Lincoln Mansions in Taipei County's Hsichih township. The scent of cooking wafted out of a few of the kitchens in the rows of five-story apartment buildings as some early-rising mothers began to cook breakfast.
Every few minutes there was a typhoon update from the TV. Beneath the stillness there was an undercurrent of anxiety as the rain came down harder outside the tightly shut doors and windows; the memory of the awesome power of last year's Typhoon Herb was still fresh.
Hell on earth?
Just as everyone's anxiety reached its peak, the apartment buildings began to rock. Within a few seconds, with a great whooshing roar, the first two stories of the five-story building nearest the slope were buried. The upper three stories were left leaning precariously against the building behind them. The hillside just couldn't absorb all of the rainwater brought by the typhoon and there had been a major landslide. Not only had the earth pushed passed the retaining wall, it had shaken an entire row of apartment buildings.
The landslide scared residents of nearby buildings out of their wits. When they recovered their senses some cried while others fled. In the blink of an eye, the once peaceful morning had turned into hell on earth.
With an ear-piercing wail of sirens, police and fire fighters rushed to the scene. Disaster relief groups arrived from far and wide and members of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Association rushed to the scene. In a short time, the area around the disaster was filled with people wearing the various uniforms of different relief groups.
A group must have a leader and so a disaster relief center was quickly established. At first, relief efforts were led by the commander of the Hsichih fire station. However, the scale of the disaster was too large and so leadership passed up the chain of command-first to the head of the Taipei County Fire Department and the mayor of Hsichih before finally being transferred to the Taipei County Magistrate, You Ching. Even Provincial Governor James Soong and then-Premier Lien Chan came to the scene to show their concern. Although led by officials of ever higher rank, relief efforts at the Lincoln Mansions remained chaotic and nobody knew how many people were still buried inside.
Almost the entire Taipei County Fire Department turned out to help, taking the search in shifts. And the International Association Search and Rescue of China (IASARC), with 16 years of search and rescue experience, also lent a hand.
Lu Cheng-tsung, head of the IASARC, felt that based on Japan's experience, they should use "mouse tunnels," a technique which involves digging tunnels deep into the wreckage, to try to find people and bring them out. If heavy machinery were used to excavate the site, the building might continue to slide and further injure those survivors still buried inside. Although tunneling is slow, it is safe. "After the Kobe earthquake, survivors were still being rescued after nine days," says Lu.
More than 100 rescuers at the scene used shovels and other simple tools to slowly tunnel into the rubble, bringing out many dead and injured.
However, on the fourth day, amidst the clamoring of worried relatives, the county government changed tactics. Miners, soldiers and fire fighters began employing techniques employed in mining disasters, using railroad ties to reinforce tunnels. The clock continued to tick and days passed. With it becoming increasingly unlikely that anyone remained alive under the rubble, on the sixth day, the rescuers stopped digging and heavy wrecking equipment was brought in to level the collapsed building. Twenty-eight people had died.
The age of the major disaster
Taiwan is located in an earthquake zone and an area where typhoons are common. This means that the risk of disaster is already high. Then the human factor increases that risk still further. Professor Chien Shen-wen, who teaches in the Department of Fire Service Administration and Science at Central Police University, says that Taiwan's population is crowded into the island's alluvial plain and is now moving into the mountain regions, high-risk areas for flooding and landslides. When one adds people's arrogant over-development in these high-risk areas, you get situations where projects like the Lincoln Mansions are trying to carve land out of the mountains and eventually, the tragic loss of innocent lives.
Damage from modern natural disasters is often of several different varieties because of the addition of the human factor. This makes rescue work more difficult and complicated. Chen Liang-chun, an assistant professor in the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning at National Taiwan University, says, "Typhoon Winnie should just have caused wind damage, but the Lincoln Mansions disaster it caused was more like what an earthquake would do."
Even the Taiwan fire-fighting system, which is the most experienced disaster relief group on the island, feels that development has made fighting fires, their stock in trade, more difficult. Hung Ching-chuan, leader of the Taipei Fire Department's rescue team, says that today's apartment buildings are more dangerous than the old one-story houses because you have many more kitchens on the same piece of land. There are also many times the number of people living in the same space, which means that once something does happen, there is a correspondingly greater number of injuries and deaths. If the fire is in an industrial zone, the situation is even more complicated. In the fire at the Yung Hsing paint and resin factory in Taoyuan County last year, flammable chemicals caused an explosion which killed six brave fire fighters.
News of industrial disasters is frequently heard, especially as industrial chemicals are becoming more commonplace. Lin Chien-huei, head of the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Chemicals Control Bureau, states that the EPA is currently most concerned about the management of six toxic chemicals including cyanide and chlorine which are concentrated in industrial areas such as Taoyuan's Kuanyin and Kaohsiung's Taoyuan. While these chemicals are commonly used by industry, they are potentially deadly weapons. The Japanese Aum Shinri Kyo cult released just such a toxic chemical, sarin, at a Tokyo subway station, killing or injuring a large number of people.
Still more feared by modern people is nuclear disaster. America's Three Mile Island disaster and the Soviet Union's Chernobyl disaster are events of the relatively recent past. Taiwan, as narrow and crowded as it is, already has three nuclear power plants and a fourth is under construction. If a nuclear disaster were to actually occur, would Taiwan be prepared?
Men in orange
"The scene of a major disaster is like a battlefield," says Lin Chien-huei. Facing ever more complicated disasters is like dealing with an intractable enemy, and the skills of rescuers and their equipment become critical to success.
The fire-fighting system only became independent of the National Police Administration in March of 1995, at which time it became the National Fire Administration under the Ministry of the Interior (MOI). Under its administration, the fire departments around the island have become Taiwan's most capable disaster relief teams. Su Chih-en, a disaster team professional who has been on the front line in fighting fires, says today's firemen are not only covered in protective clothing from head to foot, but have modern equipment such as infra-red temperature sensors, fire trucks equipped with chemical fire extinguishers and 60-meter rescue cranes (equivalent to 20 stories). He says the situation is vastly better than it was 20 years ago when he first became a fire fighter. At that time, they had no fire-retardant clothing and could only spray water on fires from outside.
To face the ever-changing circumstances of fire fighting and disaster relief, fire departments have been recruiting young fire fighters for rescue teams. These teams are undergoing training at Hsiukuluan River in Hualien and at the army's air crash training center in Taichung's Kukuan. Currently only a few cities and counties have established such rescue teams. Shieh Jiing-shiuh, director of the Taipei City Fire Department's Operation Communication Center, says that these brave men in their fire-retardant orange suits are the fire department's "marines."
There is no question about the fire departments' expertise in fighting fires, but that's not all they must deal with. When the public encounters any kind of problem, large or small, the first thing they do is call "119," the emergency services number. Chien Hsien-wen says that no matter what the problem, it is the fire department that is always first on the scene. From problems as slight as dealing with bees, catching a snake, or handling a car accident to those as large as earthquakes, toxic chemicals and nuclear disasters, they do it all.
The police air-rescue team
Another group in the vanguard of disaster relief is the police's airborne rescue team. Like the fire department, they are always on call to perform a variety of tasks. On the morning of August 17th when Typhoon Winnie struck, the sky was as black as pitch. At this time, the police's airborne rescue team was notified that four fishermen were stranded on a sea wall in front of National Taiwan Ocean University. Pilot trainer Miao Pei-lin was on duty at the time.
After flying by sight through the darkness to the sea wall, the powerful winds forced him to fly his helicopter with its nose pointed at the ocean. But with nothing on the ocean, he had no reference point by which to judge his altitude and the waves crashing against the sea wall were striking upwards. In the wind and the rain, with the waves coming up from below, Miao had to look down to control his altitude while doing his best to bring the helicopter close to the sea wall. At the same time, he had to keep the craft stable as members of the specially trained Flying Dragons Squad lowered a rope to the fishermen. The members of the airborne rescue team can only shake their heads in exasperation when asked about going out to rescue people fishing from a sea wall during a typhoon. As Miao says, "The worse the conditions are for flying, the more likely it is that we will to have to fly."
Volunteers
The island's disasters are exhausting affairs for the government's disaster relief organizations. Therefore, many civic-minded individuals have acted on their own to put together volunteer relief organizations, those with money giving money and those with a strong back lending their strength. These volunteers sometimes even put aside their jobs to help out. Nearly every city and county on the island has these kinds of volunteer groups, with examples including Greater Taipei's Taipei Rescue Association (TRA) and the Taoyuan branch of the IASARC in Taoyuan County. The volunteers usually provide help to their own areas, staying in contact with local police and fire departments by radio or cellular phone and volunteering their aid to searches in the mountains or on the water. When a major disaster strikes, such as a typhoon or large fire, they support the government's teams. Lin Tu-pin, head trainer at the Taipei Rescue Association, says that if there is the need for a search in the mountains or on the water for an extended period, the association will volunteer to do it, in order to let the fire department focus its strength on other disaster relief missions.
The TRA was founded, quite by fate, as a result of a typhoon night 10 years ago. A group of ham radio operators received a distress call. A pregnant woman, alone at home, was about to give birth. She summoned up her strength and, using her ham radio, sent a distress call out. This was the preface to volunteer disaster relief work for this group, and sparked the birth of the TRA.
When we spoke to members of the TRA, they had been searching the Tatun Mountain area and the waters below the Hsiulang Bridge round the clock for two days. You could see from their faces that the members of the TRA had not been getting enough sleep. But when they saw family members waiting anxiously for news, they found the energy to go on. "If someone dies, Chinese people want to reclaim the corpse, so even if there is no hope of survival, we still have to do all we can," said Lin Tu-ping.
Sometimes, they find corpses which, after exposure to the elements, no longer resemble human beings. All they can do is be brave and handle them. Lin, who often participates in recovering corpses from rivers, says that you get used to this kind of thing after a while, and you know in your heart that you are doing something charitable. So, he says, today he sleeps with more peace of mind than before he began participating in searches. But he also does not neglect to say that, regrettably, one team member has suffered a nervous breakdown doing this work.
Three lines of defense
Basic familiarity with rescue techniques is a requirement for those who want to participate in direct, on-site rescue operations. Tseng Kun-jung, leader of the TRA's mountain search and rescue (SAR) team, says that if you volunteer to rescue others, but end up needing to be rescued yourself, you've only added to the problems for the professional rescuers of the National Fire Administration. So it is not enough to simply be enthusiastic and charitable. For the most part, civic SAR groups provide their own training.
On a red bridge in Taoyuan County's Fuhsing Rural Township, a number of young people are preparing to experience bungee jumping. Off to one side, the IASARC is practicing rappelling down the mountain side; a lot of people stand around to gawk. Senior officers of the IASARC, some of whom are in their fifties, are still in excellent physical condition. Leader Lu Cheng-tsung was formerly a combat officer, and secretary-general Liu Kuo-chih was in the navy's SAR unit. The IASARC has participated in many rescue operations over the past 16 years, especially after plane crashes, including searching for planes' "black boxes" for China Airlines.
If the National Fire Administration (NFA) and civic rescue groups are not enough to cope with a disaster situation, then the last line of defense is the military. For example, should there be a large leak of toxic chemicals, the only way it could be contained would be to dispatch the military's chemical troops.
Unfortunately, says Chen Liang-chun of National Taiwan University, as yet there is no agency in Taiwan capable of coordinating the various groups and agencies involved in disaster relief operations (such as America's Federal Emergency Management Agency). Sometimes even the NFA, the best prepared of all agencies, can offer little help or guidance to rescue workers. Chien Shen-wen says, with emotion, "At times like these, everything depends on the courage and sense of duty of the members of the fire department who are there on the ground doing the best they can, even risking their lives."
Facing super-disasters
In 1995, the Kobe earthquake struck Japan, causing the worst damage since WWII. Large buildings collapsed, killing thousands in an instant. Then came secondary problems-fires and explosions. After the event, Kobe's municipal services ceased to function, some schools had to close for as long as two months, and the Kobe-Osaka highway was only re-opened to traffic after three years. Chen Liang-chun concludes that even Kobe, which is a very well run city, was unable to handle a super-disaster which departed from routine municipal administration.
In a situation like the Kobe earthquake, disaster relief is not only a matter for SAR personnel, but also requires a top-notch system and supporting resources.
In some cases, roads and communications are severed. During Typhoon Herb last year, landslides buried all of Shenmu Village (in Nantou County's Hsinyi Rural Township), and many people were killed or injured. But when the typhoon was past, the county executive still had no idea of the seriousness of the disaster. It was only when villagers walked out of the mountains seeking assistance that the terrible situation became known, but rescue work was by then long overdue.
The more quickly information about a disaster is received, the faster help can be sent. Thus a reporting system is necessary. Su Chih-en of the NFA's rescue squad says that, in cities, video cameras can be deployed at strategic locations, and when disaster strikes these can be supplemented by filming from helicopters, so that a disaster relief headquarters can have an immediate grasp of the situation.
To judge the scale of a disaster, it is necessary to understand the disaster area. Hung Ching-chuan says that every time they go out on an operation, headquarters always finds people-like building superintendents, restaurant owners, or residents-who are likely to know about the structure of the buildings and where there might be people in trouble. In advanced countries, this type of information is already included in geographic information systems. Such systems include maps of the natural environment and topography, as well as of community development, infrastructure, and traffic networks. If this information can genuinely be brought to bear, rescuers can get an immediate understanding of the layout of the disaster site and surrounding area, and choose the fastest routes, as well as notifying the nearest hospitals and disaster-relief agencies.
If there is a major disaster that proves difficult for rescuers to handle, such an uncontrollable toxic leak, it is necessary to consult specialists. Currently Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration is working with the health and safety technology development center of the Industrial Technology Research Institute so that, in the event of a toxic chemicals disaster, firemen can take preliminary steps as laid out in a detailed handbook of procedures prepared by the EPA, while experts will be immediately available by phone.
Disaster, not chaos
But even if all the data were available, how could it be used most effectively? Chien Shen-wen says that it is hard to think straight when actually right on the site of a disaster. Thus, besides regular practice drills, it is also necessary to have comprehensive, well thought-out emergency procedures.
The Atomic Energy Council (AEC) has produced a complete emergency plan for dealing with a nuclear accident. Chen Chang-chyuan, director of the Executive Office of the National Nuclear Emergency Management Committee, says that 14 agencies-including the AEC, Taipower, and the ministries of the Interior and of Transportation and Communications-have established committees and produced nuclear disaster response plans and clear procedures, just in case.
It is not only nuclear accidents which could have island-wide repercussions. After the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake, the ROC Executive Yuan drafted a "Disaster Prevention and Relief Law," covering storms, floods, earthquakes, and major fires. The law is still awaiting deliberation in the Legislative Yuan. At present the NFA can activate a "central disaster relief center" when disaster strikes. In fact, it was activated for both Typhoon Herb and Typhoon Winnie. It's just that it didn't operate as well as one would hope.
Ideal vs. real
After Typhoon Winnie caused disasters like the collapse of the Lincoln Mansions apartment complex, Tang Yun-ming, director of NFA's Rescue Command and Control Center (RCCC), submitted a letter to newspapers saying: "If Taiwan were to suffer a disaster like the Kobe earthquake, the RCCC would be useless. . . ." Su Chih-en, who has visited Japan to study emergency procedures there, says that Japan's disaster control center has dozens of telephone and fax lines, one dedicated to each relevant ministry or agency, so that the lines can be kept continually open. What about Taiwan?
Besides the fact that the RCCC is inadequately equipped, there is also considerable room for improvement in both data collection and communications. Su Chih-en notes that information like the location of water and natural gas pipes, maps of slopeland and water sources, and land registration, are scattered amongst different agencies like the Directorate-General of Telecommunications or the Construction and Planning Administration. The information has not been adequately organized, so cannot be used most effectively. Su says with frustration that, even were there to be a broad consensus, the NFA has no money to buy a central computer to store the data.
Moreover, the National Fire Administration, subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior, has no authority over any ministerial-level agency. Thus the ministries have erratic levels of commitment to disaster relief. Those that feel concerned will do their bit, but those that don't face no repercussions if they do nothing at all-until a major disaster hits, that is. Most of the time rescuers on the ground end up having to risk their lives using the most primitive rescue techniques. Tang Yun-ming says, exasperated: "Police learn the hard way-from criminals. Likewise, our rescue personnel only learn from disasters."
Race against time
With so many weaknesses in the national disaster relief net, experts point out that "disaster prevention and relief programs all need to be strengthened and better implemented." Every government agency needs to strengthen itself in these areas. As a model, Chien Shen-wen cites one agency that is already doing a good job-the AEC-which revises its emergency plans and procedures every two years. Chen Chang-chyuan adds that producing a written set of procedures not only helps cope with emergencies, it also clarifies who is responsible for what before the disaster happens.
Over the past 15 years, the National Science Council has been implementing a huge, three-stage disaster prevention technology research plan. This year, the NSC will complete the national disaster-prevention technology plan, and an expert consulting committee will be established, serving as a knowledge pool for the domestic disaster network. Vice-Chairman Tsai Ching-yen notes that the NSC recently signed an agreement with the US Federal Emergency Management Agency to import earthquake damage prediction software. This could be used to model various disaster scenarios, hopefully eliminating the tragedy of learning everything by experiencing real disasters first-hand.
But currently preparatory work is not at a high enough level. When disaster strikes, there is usually heavy loss of life and property, generating a fierce storm of criticism. Chien Shen-wen says that, the larger the disaster, the larger the number of people who are responsible, which means in the end that no one accepts responsibility. Moreover, when disasters strike, rescue workers are there heroically giving their all, so people end up forgiving and forgetting.
People are forgetful and perhaps even a little selfish. Chen Liang-chun emphasizes that nobody pays much attention to their surroundings, and most people don't think much about public safety. After cursing the government when disaster strikes, within a short time they go back to chasing money, heedless of all else. It is in these lapses in attention that corrupt officials and greedy business people find their opportunities to make a fast buck, undertaking risky ventures that add to the pressures on the natural environment.
Natural disasters may be unavoidable, but ruthless destruction of the environment by people and neglect of disaster prevention make matters worse. One disaster after another has plainly exposed this tragic pattern. Perhaps it will only be when people regain their respect for life and nature that this Gordian knot can be cut. But until that happens, let's all applaud our disaster relief workers!
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On the morning of National Day (October 10), when everyone was getting into high gear for the festivities, a military C-130 aircraft crashed at Sungshan Airport in Taipei. Rescue workers rushed to the scene at once. (photo by Lin Hsi-ming; courtesy of the United Daily News)
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Firemen are the "first line of defense" in rescue operations. Even in the face of a roaring fire, they must charge in-heedless of their own safety-to see if anyone has been trapped. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)
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When fire strikes a skyscraper, the rescue crane is the firemen's best friend. This photo looks like a Hollywood film, but for firemen it is routine stuff. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)
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For remote mountain areas and small offshore islands, transportation is poor and medical facilities undeveloped. When there is an injury requiring urgent assistance, it's up to the airborne police to come to the rescue.
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Saving the injured is a race against time. The airborne police transcend topographic obstacles, creating an emergency corridor in the air to save precious seconds.
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The great physical condition of the members of the International Association SAR (search and rescue) of China comes from training like that shown in the photo. Activities include CPR and mountain and water training. Only with such preparation can rescue workers have a full impact at the scene of a disaster.
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When a disaster is too large for rescue workers to handle alone, the military may be mobilized. It is the ultimate line of disaster defense.
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Most drivers in Taiwan have amulets or icons to keep them safe. Sadly, disaster prevention consciousness has not yet become widespread among the public. Though the small number of rescue workers do all they can, that is not enough-they need more public support.
For remote mountain areas and small offshore islands, transportation is poor and medical facilities undeveloped. When there is an injury requiring urgent assistance, it's up to the airborne police to come to the rescue.
Saving the injured is a race against time. The airborne police transcend topographic obstacles, creating an emergency corridor in the air to save precious seconds.
The great physical condition of the members of the International Association SAR （search and rescue） of China comes from training like that shown in the photo. Activities include CPR and mountain and water training. Only with such preparation can rescue workers have a full impact at the scene of a disaster.
When a disaster is too large for rescue workers to handle alone, the military may be mobilized. It is the ultimate line of disaster defense.
Most drivers in Taiwan have amulets or icons to keep them safe. Sadly, disaster prevention consciousness has not yet become widespread among the public. Though the small number of rescue workers do all they can, that is not enough--they need more public support.
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