Heroes in Red: Taiwan's International--Search and Rescue Volunteers

At 8:59 a.m. Taipei time on December 26, 2004, a seaquake with a magnitude of 9.3 on the Richter scale struck west of Sumatra, triggering a devastating tsunami that swept over seashore villages in countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, India, and Sri Lanka.

A divers' helmet such as this one costs NT$200,000. Thanks to donations from many sources, IHSART is able to acquire the equipment it needs to carry on with its work.

Immediate response

On the morning of Sunday the 26th, the day after Christmas, IHSART director Lu Cheng-tsung, who manages a lamp company in Taoyuan, was working overtime at his factory. That afternoon, as every TV station was broadcasting round-the-clock news of the disaster, Lu received a phone call from an IHSART member. He knew immediately that he had a big job on his hands. Around the same time Chen Hsin-hung, head of IHSART's international division, who works as a convenience-store driver, raced from his home in Hsichih, Taipei County, to IHSART headquarters in Pate, Taoyuan County. Within six hours, IHSART rescuers from north, central, and southern Taiwan had gathered at the headquarters and collected additional information from religious organizations and UN relief agencies on the Internet.

Lu Cheng-tsung decided to fly first to Thailand and establish a forward base there, because time was pressing, there was a direct flight, and it was a disaster area without rebel forces.

IHSART's international division began looking for help with the cost of plane tickets and contacting team members experienced in international search and rescue (SAR), disaster relief and the use of SAR equipment. Huang Shu-chuan, a technician at a boat-equipment company in Kaohsiung, immediately answered the call for help. By the afternoon of the 26th, more than 100 IHSART rescuers had volunteered to go to South Asia to help in the relief effort.

On Monday the 27th, Chen Hsin-hung was looking for a substitute. Huang Shu-chuan braced herself and asked her boss for leave to join the relief mission. Every member of the SAR team was busy getting 4,500 kilograms of equipment, provisions, and drinking water ready for the trip.

Lu Cheng-tsung says, "Other than vehicles, we had to take all the equipment we needed to the disaster area. We had to avoid being a burden on anyone else."

By the evening of the 27th, Huang Shu-chuan's son, a third-year senior high school student, was sulking in his room because he was worried about his mom. She told him, "I know what I'm doing, and I hope that one day you too will go all out for your ideals." Huang's son, who is over six feet tall, acknowledged her confidence and gave her a big hug to wish her Godspeed.

After the 921 Earthquake, donations poured in, enabling IHSART to buy all sorts of high-tech rescue equipment and become even more effective. The photo above shows sonar search apparatus.

A thousand hands and eyes

At midday of the 28th, a 35-member IHSART team carrying ROC flags took a China Airlines flight, paid for by the airline, to Thailand. The chairman of the Thailand Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce, who had been in touch with the IHSART team beforehand, met them at Phuket airport with a truck and an interpreter. The Taiwanese were the first international SAR team to report for duty at the Phuket disaster-relief center, and thereby earned the respect of the Thai government. The Thai vice-premier met personally with the IHSART team, assigned them to Phuket Bay and Phang Nga Bay, and made available four military trucks, two helicopters, and 600 troops to assist them.

In the Buddhist Great Compassion Mantra, the bodhisattva Guanyin says, "If I am to be one who is capable of benefiting and comforting all sentient beings, cause this body of mine to sprout a thousand arms with a thousand eyes." Lu Cheng-tsung says with gratitude, "Aren't 600 people a thousand arms and eyes? There is truth in the Buddhist sutras!"

Every international SAR team was assigned an eight-by-two kilometer swath of coastline ravaged by the tsunami. There were corpses wherever you looked. One team member remembers, "It really looked like a battleground." None of the rescuers had ever seen so many corpses.

To maintain respect for the dead and remain as quick-witted as search-and-rescue dogs, rescuers looking for corpses did not wear facemasks, and watched where flies would congregate. Lu Cheng-tsung explains that the IHSART team did not wear masks because they did not want to impair their sense of smell, and because thanks to the sea breeze in the affected area there was no danger of breathing in pathogenic bacteria. Lu says, "We weren't playing hero. We made a professional decision not to wear masks."

Wearing uniforms emblazoned with IHSART and Taiwan Rescue logos, and carrying ROC flags, the Taiwanese team displayed military discipline and earned high praise from the Thai media for the kindness and attentiveness they extended to the victims of the tsunami. Thai- and English-language newspapers reported at length about the Taiwanese team's heroic efforts, giving honor and recognition to Taiwan, which invariably finds itself under international pressure from the People's Republic of China.

After the 921 Earthquake, donations poured in, enabling IHSART to buy all sorts of high-tech rescue equipment and become even more effective. The photo at left shows an underwater robot used after the China Airlines disaster off the Penghu islands.

One hell of an instructor

IHSART was founded in 1981. Initially called the Mountain Search and Rescue Group, it was Taiwan's first disaster relief NGO. You can't talk about IHSART without mentioning its founder: Lu Cheng-tsung.

Lu Chen-tsung is one hell of an instructor. He used to be a military instructor at the ROC's mountain warfare training centers, where he trained special forces. Not surprisingly, he sports the number 001 on his shoulder emblem. Lu is also an avid mountaineer and has climbed more than 80 of Taiwan's 100 highest peaks. After he retired from the military, he and a group of friends organized themselves into a mountain-rescue team that sprang into action whenever a mountain accident occurred in Taiwan.

"The gods pull the strings. When we manage to save mountain climbers in distress, as we did during our last two or three missions, it's an indescribable feeling." Lu says that Heaven plays a hand in rousing the rescuers to give their all.

Every IHSART member had a different reason for joining. For example, Lu Chin-hung, an educator, recalls that in the martial law era his younger brother, who used to be a gang member but was also a radio enthusiast, realized that if he joined IHSART he would be able to play around with radio equipment. Though joining for the "wrong" reasons, he found the organization's work gave a new meaning to his life, and he ended up dragging in his elder brother too.

Thus a group of mountaineering enthusiasts became Taiwan's first SAR NGO. To meet a social need for its services, the organization expanded to rescue and assist victims of floods, boat and ship accidents, air crashes, traffic accidents, earthquakes, and landslides. What had been a small organization of just 15 members grew into one with more than 10,000 members divided into 87 teams in five branches all over Taiwan. More than 3000 of the members, and more than 100 female members, have received basic SAR training.

IHSART's underwater SAR training program meets the highest standards. Many military and police units have their personnel trained by IHSART.

The 921 Earthquake

In the more than 20 years since it was founded, IHSART faced no greater challenge than the 921 Earthquake. For 15 days straight, IHSART rescuers worked in shifts around the clock to find survivors. They put in more than 10,000 man-days after the earthquake. Although there was an unremitting series of aftershocks, IHSART rescuers never flinched. To rescue victims, they laid out green escape routes and illuminated ropes, propped up buildings in danger of collapsing with excavators, dug holes in the ground, climbed and leapt all over the place, and burrowed deep into collapsed buildings. Outside the buildings, rescuers stared at PET bottles containing water. If they saw water ripples, it meant that an aftershock was imminent, and they had to whistle a danger signal to tell their comrades inside the building to get out as quickly as possible.

Yang Chang-ming, whose two sons join him on his SAR missions, says, "Running out of a collapsing house during an earthquake is a terrifying experience." Asked whether he worries about his sons, Yang says that when you're involved in a disaster relief operation, you just focus on the job: "You simply don't have the time to worry about anything else." Yang's whole family sells fried chicken in a night market in Chungho, Taipei County. Business is brisk, and there's always a line in front of their stand. When the Yangs close shop, everyone knows that they are away on a rescue mission.

Nevertheless, unlike SAR teams in advanced nations, which have all sorts of tools and equipment at their disposal, IHSART rescuers rely on little beside their hands and their courage, and are all too aware that there are limits to what they can do.

The memory of the 921 Earthquake is still very painful to Lu Cheng-tsung: "It was very hot and it took us eight or nine days to dig some of the corpses out of the rubble. Because decomposition had not set in, we surmised that the victims had experienced long days of terror awaiting death."

After the South Asian Tsunami, IHSART rescuers won high praise from the international disaster-relief community for their surefooted and brave work.

Iron discipline

In Taiwan and overseas, SAR work requires exceptional courage, professional training and equipment, as well as a strict enforcement of discipline and regular assessment of achievements and mistakes. A couple of examples: A senior company executive who joined IHSART resented being asked by his team leader to make tea for fellow team members; he was given to understand that with that attitude, he ought to quit IHSART. A senior instructor was seen showing off in his uniform in a TV documentary, although IHSART hadn't authorized him to appear in the program. When he kept appearing on TV without authorization, he was given several warnings and eventually expelled from IHSART. And those who show lots of empathy but fail to get their hands dirty at the scene of a disaster, fail to obey orders, or accept monetary gifts from victims, are summarily expelled.

IHSART used to be unable to dissuade well-meaning family members from giving rescuers red paper envelopes with gift money. It was thought that even if the money was returned and the envelopes were kept as souvenirs, this could lead to misunderstandings. Now IHSART has explicit provisions in its regulations barring its members from accepting red envelopes, with or without money.

"We have a spirit of utter devotion and no need for heroics," says Lu Cheng-tsung. SAR work is teamwork. A rescuer who thinks he's some kind of hero endangers himself and others.

Although instructors tell prospective rescuers to "first save yourself before you can save anybody else," and discourage heroics, Lu acknowledges that it would be misleading to claim that SAR work isn't dangerous.

The most dangerous and spectacular IHSART rescue operation was carried out during the Lincoln Mansions disaster. Under heavy rains brought by Typhoon Winnie, IHSART rescuers reached the building complex, which was still sliding down a hillside, on rubber dinghies. Rescuers took a big risk once they reached the buildings, because they were tilting heavily, making it difficult for them to keep their balance and see straight. Lu Cheng-tsung was originally supposed to direct rescue operations from outside. He was very worried about how he would break the news to family members if any member of his team should have an accident. He eventually went into the buildings and spent three sleepless days and nights, more than 70 hours, directing operations and having his meals brought in by fellow rescuers. Cheng recalls, "I was glad to be in there doing my job!"

Formerly a military instructor at the ROC's mountain warfare training centers, IHSART director Lu Cheng-tsung (front) is the soul of the organization as well as a hell of an SAR instructor.

A strong stomach

IHSART rescuer Yang Chang-ming jokes that to do SAR work, you need a spirit of selflessness, a good dose of courage, and "a pretty strong stomach." The first time he took part in a rescue operation, Yang had to carry a corpse wrapped in whatever he could find, as there were no sealable body bags in those days. The victim's head had been smashed in, and Yang, who is small in stature, ended up covered in blood and brains.

Yang recalls, "It took all my strength to keep from throwing up, and I was unable to eat anything for three days afterward." Had it not been for his friends' encouragement, he would have quit IHSART there and then.

Rescuers confront life-and-death issues all the time. "If you were afraid, you wouldn't do it, and once you start doing it you're not afraid." Having seen her share of decapitated, water-swollen, foul-smelling, and dismembered bodies during the South Asian Tsunami operation, Huang Shu-chuan says that she would let her mind wander, eat lunch as usual, and go back to removing corpses. After the China Airlines crash over Tayuan, rescuers were unable to buy plastic gloves in the middle of the night, and had to pick up body parts with their bare hands. All they could do was to try to put body parts that looked like they belonged to one body into the same bag.

Lu Cheng-tsung is philosophical about life and death: "It's like being a surgeon; eventually you get used to seeing suffering and death. And dead people are less scary than people who're still alive." Once Lu spent a whole day recovering corpses of flood victims. That evening at the dinner table, he told a group of friends a piece of Buddhist black humor, "This morning we saw fish eating people and now we're seeing people eating fish." And then he proceeded to dig in.

Sooner or later, most IHSART rescuers come into contact with putrefactive bacteria from human corpses, either because they get blood on their clothes or because they have to handle corpses. Lu says, "The stuff gives you a very itchy rash that's exceedingly sore even to the gentlest touch. It makes you look like you fell in a clump of stinging nettles."

When disaster strikes, Yang Chang-ming, who sells fried chicken in a night market in Chungho, takes his two sons on his SAR missions.

When work and family collide

IHSART rescuers know that they might have to jump into action whenever the phone rings, even on Chinese New Year's Eve. How do they balance work and family?

Lu Cheng-tsung candidly admits that there are only so many hours in a day and it's easy to attend to one thing and lose sight of the other: "When work and family collide, one of the two inevitably gives way." Most people think that Lu ought to advise rescuers whose spouses don't appreciate what their job entails to quit, but he tells them to follow their calling no matter what.

Lu says, "If the wife doesn't let her husband go, he'll resent it and he'll blame her. That certainly wouldn't contribute to family harmony." Lu says that he is truly grateful to have married a woman who understands. After the China Airlines crash near the Penghu islands, Lu stayed on the islands for 37 days.

In more than 20 years IHSART rescuers have braved untold dangers, but none has died in the line of duty. "We are all God's children," says chief instructor Lu Chin-hung with sense of gratitude. But Tseng Chiu-ping, who took part in the rescue effort following the 921 Earthquake, rues the day she went to the earthquake zone, because that day her ten-year-old son got into a car wreck that turned him into a vegetable.

Rappelling slowly down a rope, evacuating people from high-rise buildings, climbing up rock walls, and performing all sorts of jumps.... Men and women who want to become IHSART rescuers must first undergo arduous training.

Facing down the gates of hell

The landslide that caused the Lincoln Mansions disaster was so violent that ground-floor apartments ended up underground and the entire second floor of one building was reduced to a space 30 centimeters high. To recover the remains of one woman, seven or eight burly IHSART rescuers had to crawl around in a confined space that was crumbling to pieces, digging slowly with steel trowels and their bare hands. Although the victim was a stranger to them, the men gave their all to dig out her body in one piece.

Despite obvious language difficulties, after the South Asian tsunami IHSART rescuers were able to communicate in the language of the heart with the victims: "We are Taiwanese rescuers and we're here to take care of things and take you away from here." As a final sign of respect, they folded the hands of the dead on their chests as if they were sleeping babies.

On the evening of their departure from Thailand, it suddenly started to drizzle. After their equipment had been loaded onto trucks, a group of IHSART rescuers who were sitting in the last military truck in the desolate disaster area saw some people wave goodbye to them through the darkness....

Lu comments, "The spirits were obviously satisfied with our work."

The Great Compassion Mantra says, "If I face the hell of the mountain of swords, may the swords spontaneously shatter. If I face the hell of liquid fire, may the fire spontaneously dry up. If I face the hell realm, may hell spontaneously disappear." Love for their fellow man motivates courageous IHSART volunteers to put their lives on the line whenever and wherever disaster strikes.

Rappelling slowly down a rope, evacuating people from high-rise buildings, climbing up rock walls, and performing all sorts of jumps.... Men and women who want to become IHSART rescuers must first undergo arduous training.

After the 921 Earthquake, IHSART rescuers relied on excavators, their bare hands, and a big dose of courage to enter collapsed buildings in search of possible survivors.

To avoid being a burden on anyone, IHSART rescuers took their own SAR equipment and everything else they needed, including food, water, and sleeping bags, to the tsunami disaster area.