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From House to Home

• Byline:OSCAR CHUNG
• Publication Date:08/01/2012

A memorial park for more than 400 residents of Xiaolin Village who were killed by a debris slide during Typhoon Morakot in August 2009. The park opened in January this year. (Photo by Oscar Chung)

As more survivors of Typhoon Morakot move into permanent housing developments, relief efforts are shifting toward making the new communities feel like home.

Like most other days, it was clear and sunny on May 5 this year in Wulipu Village in rural Kaohsiung City, southern Taiwan. But the day was unusual for a large group of residents who were refugees from Xiaolin Village, a hamlet that was wiped off the map by a landslide caused by Typhoon Morakot on August 9, 2009. For the Xiaolin Village survivors and their relatives, May 5 was noteworthy because it saw the rebirth of Beiji Temple, a religious hub that had been obliterated by tons of mud and rocks. At the reopening of the temple in Wulipu Village, firecrackers exploded with a deafening blast in the square in front of the temple, performers wearing large body puppets danced to drums and cymbals and the previously quiet village filled with energy and life.

The destruction of Xiaolin Village and Beiji Temple left survivors with deep scars. “I lived in the village for 46 years, but I’d never seen such a horrible thing,” says Weng Rui-qi (翁瑞琪), 49. The slide killed more than 400 Xiaolin Village residents, including 10 of Weng’s family members living under the same roof. Xiaolin Village was not the only area to be affected, as Morakot caused 699 deaths, seriously damaged 1,766 houses in central and southern Taiwan and has forced the permanent relocation of more than 10,000 people so far.

Xiaolin Village’s former residents are still working to come to terms with the losses they have suffered while moving forward with their lives. To provide a place for disaster survivors to mourn their loved ones, a memorial park opened in January this year. The park is about a five-minute drive from Wulipu Village and features a 9-meter-high monument, ancestral hall, memorial square and viewing platform overlooking the former site of the village.

Since early 2011, Weng, other Xiaolin Village survivors and their relatives have also been able to enjoy permanent homes in Wulipu that were provided free of charge through a partnership between various government agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGO). At the 8th International Symposium on Social Management Systems, a major colloquium on disaster prevention and reconstruction held in Kaohsiung in early May this year, Republic of China (ROC) President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) noted that the success of such efforts to help Morakot survivors had depended on cooperation between the executive and the legislative branches, between the public and the private sectors, and between the central and local governments. This year’s symposium was co-organized by the Morakot Post-Disaster Reconstruction Council (MPDRC) under the Executive Yuan in conjunction with the Society for Social Management Systems, which was founded in Japan. The MPDRC has held similar symposiums each year since 2010. Some 120 international guests from 18 countries were among the 400 attendees who discussed the challenges associated with large natural disasters at this year’s two-day conference.

Shanlin Da-Ai Community in Shanlin District, Kaohsiung City is the largest permanent housing project for Morakot refugees, who began moving into the community in February 2010. (Photo by Oscar Chung)

According to Chern Jenn-chuan (陳振川), chief executive officer of the MPDRC, Japanese participants at the symposium expressed admiration for Taiwan’s highly efficient NGOs and the compassion its people have shown in the form of donations to aid organizations. According to the MPDRC, local cash donations to NGOs for Morakot relief efforts had reached NT$25.1 billion (US$793.2 million) by 2010. Among others, the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation received NT$4.8 billion (US$151.7 million), the Red Cross Society of the ROC NT$4 billion (US$126.4 million) and World Vision Taiwan NT$1.8 billion (US$56.9 million).

Seigo Nasu, a professor of engineering from Kochi University of Technology in Japan who was one of the experts at the May symposium, says he is impressed by the high efficiency of the Morakot reconstruction work. “It’s amazing that Taiwan was able to resettle the refugees in permanent houses in such a short time while also addressing their concerns over earning a livelihood and showing respect for their cultures,” Nasu says. “In contrast, the reconstruction following the tragedy in March last year in Fukushima in northeastern Japan has been going slowly. Taiwan has set a good example for Japan in this respect.”

The efficiency Nasu refers to was born of the urgent need for housing that confronted Morakot survivors. Over a 20-day span following the disaster, that need saw the Special Statute Governing Reconstruction After Typhoon Morakot drafted by the Executive Yuan, passed by the Legislative Yuan and promulgated by President Ma. “The legislation greatly simplifies the procedure for appropriating land for permanent housing for the refugees,” Chern says of one of the most important features of the statute, which established the legal foundation for the council’s work.

Soon after passage of the statute, the government and NGOs began cooperating to build permanent housing projects for displaced typhoon victims, with the former providing the land and the latter constructing the houses. It took only 52 days for Tzu Chi to obtain construction permits to build the first permanent village for Morakot survivors in Shanlin District, Kaohsiung City, whereas normally the application process takes more than two years. Equally impressive was the speed at which new homes were built: in the village’s first phase, construction of 750 brand-new permanent housing units took less than three months. As a result, Morakot refugees from six districts in Kaohsiung were able to move in just half a year after they lost their original homes. The second phase of the project has since pushed the total number of Shanlin housing units to 1,006, or nearly one-third of all units completed for Morakot refugees around Taiwan. Nationwide, in May this year that total reached 3,213 new units in 36 communities that house more than 10,000 people affected by the disaster. Of the 216.5 total hectares of land used to build permanent housing for Morakot survivors, most came from the holdings of the government-run Taiwan Sugar Corp.

Yonglin Organic Farm began employing Morakot survivors in early 2010 with the goal of training them for a potential career as independent organic farmers. (Photo by Oscar Chung)

With the basic need to find new permanent housing for Morakot survivors largely satisfied, Chern notes that the government’s focus has shifted to helping the victims feel at home in their new communities. As indigenous peoples account for more than 60 percent of all refugees, for example, the Cabinet-level Council of Indigenous Peoples has encouraged aboriginal inhabitants to decorate the outside of their houses freely since the spring of 2011. The council offers a maximum subsidy of NT$100,000 (US$3,330) per household for such decorations, thereby allowing residents to adorn their homes with motifs drawn from their distinctive cultural and aesthetic traditions. The only restriction is that the décor complies with building codes. As a result, the appearance of many houses varies depending on the owner’s taste. “In the beginning all the permanent housing units looked the same, but now each is developing its own style and has the feel of a home,” Chern says.

The MPDRC also promotes the improvement of the housing developments as a whole. “The newly founded communities have set up their own management committees, which should be able to coordinate the needs of the inhabitants and help them work together,” Chern says. In another effort designed to support residents, the MPDRC encourages the construction of public buildings that reflect local cultural characteristics. So far, such buildings have ranged from activity centers to Christian churches. According to Chang Herng-yuh (張恆裕), director of the MPDRC’s Department of General Planning, the largest new community in Shanlin will also gain a new aboriginal-themed square within the next two years.

The Ministry of Culture (MOC) has contributed to resettlement efforts by training cultural workers in nine of the permanent housing projects. The 34 workers are intended to serve as “cultural seeds” who perform tasks like surveying local cultural resources or working as community newspaper reporters. The program began in June 2011 and is scheduled to end this month.

For its part, the MPDRC launched the Pulami Project in October 2011 to ensure the sustainability of eight major housing areas. The project takes its name from the word for bountiful harvest in the language of the Paiwan indigenous people. Under the scheme, MPDRC officials visit each of the communities each month to discuss their needs and address issues ranging from the development of local industry to public security to assistance from central and local government agencies.

To ensure the communities’ development, the government also works with the corporate sector to create job opportunities. Yonglin Organic Farm in Kaohsiung, for example, grows crops on land leased from Taiwan Sugar and is operated by the Yonglin Foundation. The foundation was established by Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s largest manufacturer of electronic components. In early 2010, the foundation began clearing land and recruiting workers for the farm, which was certified as selling genuine organic produce in November that year. In September 2011, the farm began selling produce to supermarket chains in southern Taiwan and Taipei. At present, Yonglin Organic Farm still operates at a loss, although Lee Wei-yu (李惟裕), the farm’s director and winner of a national award for excellence in organic farming in 2009, is hopeful of turning a profit by 2014.

The government is working to help disaster survivors feel at home in their new communities through programs such as granting subsidies for exterior decorations. (Photo by Oscar Chung)

A Future in Farming

The farm is located on Provincial Highway 21, which also leads to the former site of Xiaolin Village, and employs more than 100 workers to take care of Yonglin’s 54 hectares of greenhouses, seedling fields and other facilities. Most of the staff are from a nearby community that houses people displaced by the typhoon. “At first we saw few refugees coming to apply for jobs, but the situation changed as they settled into their new homes and the farm operations got underway,” Lee says. The farm devotes a large amount of time to training employees in organic farming skills, which helps improve production and also prepares workers for a potential career as independent organic farmers.

Not all post-Morakot job creation efforts are as big as Yonglin Organic Farm. Jack Hua (華偉傑) is an organic coffee grower who received subsidies from the Council of Labor Affairs to train four agricultural workers for six months in Pingtung County, southern Taiwan, which was severely affected by the typhoon. Hua now employs those trainees as well as 16 other workers from the area.

The huge landslides that accompanied Morakot led Hua to give serious thought to water and soil conservation. “I grow peanuts on the same land where I grow coffee,” he says. “That not only provides nutrients to the coffee bushes, but also anchors the soil. To protect the environment, I also avoid cultivation on steep slopes.” The environmentally friendly methods for growing coffee pioneered by Hua have since been widely adopted by other local farmers.

While progress has been made in housing and jobs, much work to help Morakot survivors remains to be done. The Special Statute Governing Reconstruction After Typhoon Morakot was originally intended to run for three years. In May 2011, however, the Legislative Yuan acknowledged that reconstruction work might take longer than originally foreseen by making provisions for a two-year extension of the statute. After a review of the reconstruction effort, in mid-May this year the Executive Yuan decided that an extension was warranted and set aside a NT$4.7 billion (US$157 million) budget for completing unfinished Morakot reconstruction projects.

The construction of permanent housing units will continue under the extension. According to the MPDRC’s Chang, while 10,000 people have relocated to permanent housing due to Morakot, another 9,000 individuals continue to live in areas that are susceptible to natural disasters like the one that swallowed Xiaolin Village. Of those 9,000 people, about 760 from Pingtung and Chiayi County, southern Taiwan are expected to have moved to three new communities by the end of this summer. Another two new villages will be built in the extended reconstruction period for about 230 refugees from Chiayi and Kaohsiung, although a suitable site for those from Kaohsiung has yet to be decided upon. “It could take a long time to find the proper locations, especially for aboriginal people who have a deep attachment to their original communities,” Chern says. “They hope they can live close to their old villages, but that wish could conflict with the opinions of experts who assess the geological condition of possible sites. Safety is the priority concern.”

Children prepare to try unicycling in Shanlin Da-Ai Community. Permanent housing communities for Morakot survivors include facilities such as schools, public squares and churches. (Photo by Oscar Chung)

The government has devised a compromise for the more than 8,000 people who remain unwilling to abandon their original homes and move to safer locations. A revision to the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act stipulates that residents living in hazardous areas can be compelled to evacuate if deteriorating weather conditions increase the likelihood of danger. The original act, which was passed in 2000 as a response to the September 21, 1999 earthquake that killed more than 2,400 people in Taiwan, stated that local governments could ask the military to perform forceful evacuations, if necessary. After the devastation of Typhoon Morakot, that part of the act was revised in 2010 to stipulate that the military should proactively manage threats associated with natural disasters. “This revision is of great significance,” Chang says. “The military used to play a passive role, but not anymore.”

While helping Morakot survivors regain a semblance of their former lives is a crucial task, the government is also focused on preventing future disasters. If the debris-choked watercourses left behind by the typhoon are not cleared, for example, major flooding could occur in the future. “The rivers have been dredged day and night, but the cleanup is far from complete,” Chern says, noting that Morakot dumped 400 million cubic meters of debris into Taiwan’s rivers, but only 210 million cubic meters had been removed by May this year. More debris loosened by Morakot remains on slopes and hillsides and is likely to be washed down to rivers sooner or later, which means river dredging could be a long-term task, he says.

The government has also embarked on a major effort to analyze Taiwan’s geological conditions in order to identify sites prone to landslides and floods, as well as the extent of damage that could occur at such sites. In 2010, the Central Geological Survey (CGS) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs launched the three-year National Land Conservation of Geologically Sensitive Zones project. The project will run through the end of this year and employs a technology known as LiDar, or light detection and ranging. LiDar produces highly accurate geological data and images that can be used to assess the likelihood of natural hazards including earthquakes, erosion, flooding and landslides. All told, by October this year the survey is expected to have covered 24,425 square kilometers in central, eastern and southern Taiwan—or roughly two-thirds of the country’s area—that were heavily affected by Typhoon Morakot.

Another part of the government’s work to identify Taiwan’s disaster-prone areas was the drafting of the Geology Act, which took effect in December 2011 and requires the CGS and other government agencies to designate geologically sensitive areas across Taiwan and produce corresponding land use and development regulations.

Wulipu Village in early May this year. The Morakot reconstruction effort was originally scheduled to end this month, but was extended for another two years to allow for the completion of unfinished projects. (Photo by Oscar Chung)

The Right Way

Daniel Bollinger, a geologist who heads Section Natural Hazards of Canton Schwyz, a local government in Switzerland, traveled to Taiwan in May this year to attend the Kaohsiung conference and pay a visit to the CGS. “Taiwan is on the right way in its effort to prevent disasters, although the task of marking out sensitive areas can’t be completed overnight, because Taiwan, like Switzerland, is densely populated. But good land use planning is probably the most important disaster mitigation method,” the Swiss expert says, adding that his country began a geological survey similar to Taiwan’s in the 1990s. Today, about 90 percent of Switzerland’s populated areas have been graded according to their susceptibility to natural hazards, he says.

Life is full of sharp reminders for Xiaolin Village survivors in Wulipu. Behind their houses stand mountains that spark memories of just how wrathful Mother Nature can be, although landslides pose little threat to their new homes. The nearby memorial park offers solace, but also inevitably makes visitors recall the sadness associated with the old village that lies buried. In a way, the work on disaster prevention since Typhoon Morakot honors those memories and helps to ensure that such tragedies are not repeated. Morakot was a terrible calamity, but keeping it in mind can serve as a catalyst for disaster mitigation and prevention. While former residents of Xiaolin Village need to move on with their lives, Taiwan as a whole should never forget the typhoon and the destruction it wrought.

Write to Oscar Chung at mhchung@mofa.gov.tw