But Morakot was different: in the two days that followed 2.5 meters of rain fell on the southern mountains: a tourist mecca of amazing natural beauty and home to hundreds of aboriginal Taiwanese people: for many these lands had been in their families for centuries.
The torrential rain caused massive mud and land slides, rivers flooded and together they destroyed 42 bridges and numerous roads. The mud and water, together with the vegetation they collected, buried entire villages and resulted in the death of approximately 614 people, the displacement of over 25,000 and, as of this week, approximately 75 are still missing.Pan Jia Pao, a 10 year old boy, lived with his family and 395 other people in the village of Shoulin in the mountains. On the 8th of August, the land sunk into the ground and every single person was buried. Pan was not there, two weeks earlier he had been placed in the care of The Salvation Army Boys Home at Puli – today he is the sole survivor.
As The Salvation Army, and numerous other organizations, try to identify the best way to assist the victims of this natural disaster we continue to be hampered by the fact that it is impossible to access some of the villages deep in the mountains. Government is responding, and donations are coming – but the fact remains that there are over 25,000 people who have lost everything: ancestral land, homes and belongings, not to mention family members and friends.
The challenge ahead is both long and short term: how do we engage and re-energise people that have lost not only family, but material possessions, homes and livelihoods that they will probably never reclaim. What do they need and how can we provide for the immediate; how do they rebuild their identity and self-worth when all that they have relied on to define themselves is buried and/or unstable?
