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Home Editorials of Interest Taipei Times A muted response to real disaster

A muted response to real disaster

Over the past few days, volunteers and Netizens across the nation have turned their compassion into action, serving as rescue workers and searching for typhoon victims and transporting relief aid, or donating money and disseminating rescue and missing persons information via e-mail, Twitter, Plurk, Facebook and other social networking Web sites.

Yet the broadcast and print media continue to be filled with heartrending images of frightened survivors recounting narrow escapes, tearful villages wailing for their missing or dead loved ones and horrifying scenes of villages annihilated by water, rocks and mudslides.

There is only so much that individuals and charity groups can do when a disaster of this magnitude strikes. The most effective resources lie in the hands of the central government, which is the sole organization with the authority to integrate and mobilize rescue operations.

The government so far has rejected offers of material assistance from Japan and the US, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying that Taiwan has “sufficient resources” and that “the disaster relief mechanism is working well.”

President Ma Ying-jeou has ruled out declaring an emergency decree, stating — perhaps not unreasonably — that existing legislation provides the executive with all the authority and resources that are necessary and that government mechanisms are functioning properly.

Arguments over the reach of the law and the utility of a presidential emergency decree will continue for some time, but for the moment, it is dumbfounding to recall that the president, speaking at the Central Emergency Operation Center on Saturday, shifted responsibility to local governments. He said it was those governments that should act as prime movers in rescue work and that the central government would act as an auxiliary. Given that local governments enjoy no authority to deploy military resources, Ma’s little lecture was as nonsensical as his verbaling of the Central Weather Bureau for failing to predict the enormity of the disaster.

Cabinet Spokesman Su Jun-pin on Sunday said the scope and speed of the central government’s rescue work had exceeded that of the 921 Earthquake almost 10 years ago.

But a cursory comparison suggests this is not the case. Hours after the quake struck on Sept. 21, 1999, the Hengshan Military Command Center ordered the deployment of forces to disaster zones and commenced rescue work. Within a day, more than 15,000 personnel were stationed in quake-ravaged regions and advanced helicopters such as the OH-58D, which carries laser range finders and thermal imaging sensors, were deployed for rescue operations.

How ironic it is that a large number of the nation’s military bases are in southern Taiwan, yet three days after Typhoon Morakot slammed into the area on Friday, the military had deployed a mere 8,500 personnel to stricken areas, and without provision for advanced aircraft.

When disaster strikes, every hour counts. The earlier manpower is dispatched on search and rescue efforts, the more lives can be saved. At a time of disaster, leadership must come to the fore to minimize suffering and financial loss.

Clearly, this has not happened, and this failure will emerge as a profound test of the Ma administration’s credibility.

Source: Taipei Times - Editorials 2009/08/13



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Newsflash


Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Su Tseng-chang, center, and a group of DPP legislators yesterday prepare for a press conference calling on the government to grant former president Chen Shui-bian medical.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday called on President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to grant former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) medical parole after a magazine reported on the deterioration of Chen’s health.

The DPP Central Standing Committee yesterday reached a resolution to demand that Ma grant medical parole for Chen, who is serving an 18-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption, but has been hospitalized for treatment of various complications.