Taiwanese villagers flee swollen lake that bursts

[August 13, 2009]  LIUKUEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Hundreds of villagers fled their homes minutes before a flood-created lake burst Thursday, as the Taiwanese military deployed thousands more troops to rescue and deliver supplies to survivors from remote villages devastated during last weekend's typhoon.

But many villagers complained that the government was too slow to mobilize the rescue and cleanup effort, saying more victims could have been saved if they had moved sooner and faster.

The government said its operations have been hampered because many areas of the country were cut off when roads and bridges collapsed, though Interior Minister Liao Liao-yi said troops on foot had reached several villages Wednesday.

Until then, rescuers had relied solely on helicopters to reach the worst-hit areas, and on Thursday authorities requested larger choppers from foreign governments capable of carrying earth-moving equipment and shelters.

Some 14,000 villagers have been rescued -- including 600 on Thursday -- since Typhoon Morakot dumped more than 80 inches (2 meters) of rain this past weekend, the island's disaster relief center said. The storm unleashed the worst floods the island has seen in 50 years.

Another 2,000 villagers -- who escaped those floods and were sheltering either in open fields or on higher ground -- were still waiting to be ferried to shelters, it said. Several hundred more -- no one is sure how many -- remain unaccounted for and are feared lost in the mudslides.

The official death toll in Taiwan stands at 108, with 61 listed as missing. The storm also killed 22 people in the Philippines and eight in China.

The military sent 4,000 new troops on Thursday to join another 16,000 soldiers already working to save thousands of survivors stranded in several villages in the island's south, the Defense Ministry said.

Relief officials on Thursday asked foreign governments to provide giant choppers that could carry cranes, prefabricated houses and sterilizers. Lawmakers said only the U.S. and Russia made those helicopters.

Taiwan has already received offers of financial assistance from the United States, Japan, Singapore and China.

In the southern Taiwan township of Toayuan, 500 villagers were told to run to higher ground about 30 minutes before a lake created by floodwaters and landslides burst its banks, an official said, adding that two nearby lakes were expected to burst soon.

"There would be a massive amount of water flowing down the Laonung River, and we have alerted villagers around to flee," relief official Hsu Chin-biao said.

In the southern town of Liukuei, scores of private relief vehicles were held up along a narrow, muddy mountain road, waiting for permission to move toward the center of the heavy flooding that devastated a series of isolated villages.

Relief efforts by a number of Buddhist organizations complement the military's work to pluck hundreds of villagers from the affected area.

But villagers complained to President Ma Ying-jeou and other leaders who visited the hard-hit areas this week that the rescue operation was too slow.

"Why does the government say only useless things?" a woman anxious to learn the fate of relatives trapped in Kaochung village in the south asked. With tears filling her eyes, she told TV reporters: "I've been waiting for several days, yet there has not been anyone going to rescue my family."

The mass circulation Apple Daily said Ma "failed to order the military to commit itself to relief efforts right away, and that made him an incompetent commander in chief."

News reports said many villagers used their bare hands in the days after the mudslides to try to dig down to their buried homes in futile efforts to save their relatives.

Others sought to send messages for help.

On Wednesday, a wooden sign was seen being erected near a collapsed bridge in Hsinfa village in Kaohsiung saying "32 Buried SOS." Rescuers rushed to the scene and tossed ropes over the river to pull several survivors to safety, according to news reports.

[Associated Press; By PETER ENAV]

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.