Taiwan's Typhoon Morakot - A personal story

[otoro]

The storm that was initially welcome to alleviate the country's drought season, but has since swept Taiwan into a whirlpool of disasters, mud slides, broken bridges and buried remote mountainous villages. The current death tool is in the high hundred's.....Typhoon Morakot is now consider Taiwan's deadliest natural disastrous within the last fifty years.

Me, being Taiwanese, I feel naturally connected to this catastrophe and can only help by direct donations and in hopes and prayers.

From here, I share images that a friend has sent me - to provide a first hand account that we sometimes don't see from the mass media.

My friend resides in TaiChung Taiwan, where the damage of the storm is less concentrated. Extent of damage is mainly in Southern Taiwan, contrary to what was anticipated. Please excuse my brute translation of his blog:

Day 1 of storm.
"A rather normal image from my balcony. The rain working non-stop and the drains have been used to capacity. The lower sections of the streets have collected a lot of water that has nowhere to go."

"Right now, the water is at 10cm......the rain is still here and I have try to take some measurements. I wonder how bad this is going to get?"

"I can't see the street anymore. Time to go buy more water and instant noodles, but where is the 7-11 that use to be here?"

"I see someone's teddy bear flowing down the street.... is this not a scary movie?"

"Water is now coming into my house. I don't know what to do."

"Water is now going past 11cm inside the house! The sand bags are not working. I need to get a water pump...."

Day 2
"Water, water, water everywhere. Rain will not stop. My neighbor is almost flooded completely and I cannot see the street."

"This is not good... the water has enter the second checkpoint. My garage is now flooded and we are trying to keep the water out of our living room. Hurry! More sand bags......"

"We are too late"

"This water is coming in too fast! We are almost 20cm of water inside the garage."

"To save whatever I can..."

"Everything is now one level with the water."

Day 3
"Rain has stopped, for now.....I hope everyone is ok. The phone is not working, but I can still send/receive text. The damage it has done to my neighborhood."

As my friend explains, he was fortunate enough to live close to newly installed storm drains which he could have seen his 1st floor being flooded throughout. The effects of Typhoon Morakot caused a greater toll in Southern Taiwan.



A few photos from The Boston Globe: (www.boston.com)

With situations like this happening around the world, it makes me shameful to think about my little problems and nuisances. Unfortunately, its times like this that reminds me to be thankful for what you have.

My prayers go out to all the victims of this flood.

 

[nsxsupra]

The current death tool is in the high hundred's.....Typhoon Morakot is now consider Taiwan's deadliest natural disastrous within the last fifty years.

With situations like this happening around the world, it makes me shameful to think about my little problems and nuisances. Unfortunately, its times like this that reminds me to be thankful for what you have.

My prayers go out to all the victims of this flood.

It is terrible, an enire year worth of rainfall in 3 days. My prayers goes out to victims. Hope the rain would just stop.

Situation like this is way beyond human's control.

I do agree that we should all be thankful, especially shameful ones who got it easy and don't appreciate, those who earn it the hard way do deserve it, but they still should be thankful for the superior determination they have.

 

[queenlives]

thx for making this a more personal story. send our good wishes to your friends.

hal

 

[Dtrigg]

Thoughts and prayers to those people.

 

[otoro]

It is terrible, an enire year worth of rainfall in 3 days. My prayers goes out to victims. Hope the rain would just stop.

Situation like this is way beyond human's control.

I do agree that we should all be thankful, especially shameful ones who got it easy and don't appreciate, those who earn it the hard way do deserve it, but they still should be thankful for the superior determination they have.

Well said Jason :smile:

The irony of all this is that most of the 2nd and 3rd generation Taiwanese that are State side, seem to not care or ignore this issue completely. Most of my Taiwanese friends didn't realize this storm existed until KCAL 9 aired footage of a hotel being washed away by mudslide; and this entire catastrophe earned a 15-second newscast whilst the "Adopt-a-Pet" program was a full feature segment of the news??? How easily it is to forget that our immigrant parents or grandparents have seen similar catastrophes, and because of their sacrifices/courage we are able to be where we are today.

It also bothers me that my more "Americanized" friends consider to slew the name recognition of "FOB" to all things/people foreign. If your an ABC, is your heritage any different then say a new immigrant? But then again, I, too, was guilty of this when I was my pre-teen years and later realized that we all came from THE SAME BOAT (actually, most arrived via planes?). It seems as if age builds your identity and a better understanding of your roots. For me, the older I got, the thirst for my heritage/ethnicity became a self-fulfilling journey. That is why whenever someone asks about my ethinicty, I reply proudly saying that I am Taiwanese instead of just saying a rather generic Asian.

I know there's quite a bit of Taiwanese here so this thread should help spread the news. Relief efforts can be made through various charities and even available at the US Red Cross.

 

[LoveNSXs]

I think this is awesome that you're bringing this more into light.

I'm sad to say that I was completely unaware of what was going on until you mentioned it to me in a PM.

Thanks for sharing and encouraging me (indirectly =P) to remember and to be proud of my roots and of being Taiwanese. =]

 

[Ben]

Crazy to see a first hand account. My place is in Taipei, as well as most people I know, which saw relatively little damage compared to the south. One of my friend's whose family lives in Tainan had their first floor flooded.

My thoughts go out to those affected by this natural disaster.

As for the photos of the hotel that toppled over that is being broadcast all over the world. That's a famous resort/hot spring area that some say was built up too much, too quickly. I was just there in Jan, although I stayed in the hotel behind the one that toppled.

The crazy thing is that I couldn't identify the area around it, although I clearly recognized the hotel that I stayed in. Then, it hit me why I didn't recognize it. It had all been washed away. Basically, there should be a parking lot there, then the road, then a 10 foot levee. Basically, the levee has been totally breached and washed away. The parking lot, and the road has been totally washed away, and the row of buildings that you see to the left and to the right of the toppled building, what looks like the 2nd floor now, is actually the 1st floor. The basements and foundations have been exposed!

I had to look at the pics I took back in January to realize this, because as I recalled, there were no buildings directly on the riverbank/levee.

This is what it looked like in Jan. Basically, the entire levee, the road, the parking lot has been washed away to the depth of 1 story. The buildings in the foreground of my photo are the ones now at the edge of the water. The building that toppled is just out of the field of view on the right. The palm trees in both mine and the falling building photos can be used as a reference. I took this from the 2nd story window of the pink hotel. Click here for a full size image.

 

[Ben]

It also bothers me that my more "Americanized" friends consider to slew the name recognition of "FOB" to all things/people foreign. If your an ABC, is your heritage any different then say a new immigrant? But then again, I, too, was guilty of this when I was my pre-teen years and later realized that we all came from THE SAME BOAT (actually, most arrived via planes?). It seems as if age builds your identity and a better understanding of your roots. For me, the older I got, the thirst for my heritage/ethnicity became a self-fulfilling journey. That is why whenever someone asks about my ethinicty, I reply proudly saying that I am Taiwanese instead of just saying a rather generic Asian.

The funny thing is that as we get older, and we have opportunities to travel to Taiwan (and China), those same people who attached the "FOB" label to things are finding that as they go back for business, or visits, that they actually like the lifestyle better over there, and wish they had realized what they were missing in Asia all these years and had gone back and embraced it years earlier. Once they've had a taste, many don't want to come back.

 

[alum04org]

Gutwrenching.

Typhoons = hurricanes.

Memories of Katrina's wrath four years later still fresh in the nostrils and vision.

 

[otoro]

As of Friday 8/14, foreign aid began to arrive in Taiwan, "The Foreign Ministry thanked the 59 countries, nine international organizations and several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for their offer of aid and expression of concern."

Link to news

Current death tolls are on the rise while many are still unaccounted for. I will be volunteering this weekend at a foreign aide organization here in So.Cal. For those interested in relief efforts, feel free to PM me for more info.

Thanks to those taking the time to read, understand and relate to this horrible situation.

Additional pictures:

Family members sit alongside the rebel to what use to be their home that is buried under.

Many airplane hangers in Taiwan have turned into storage facilities for relief efforts.

Locals wait alongside helicopter landings to see if they can spot their surviving family members.

Taiwan's military out in full force to revive what they can.

Before Morakot

After

The search effort continues.....