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Taiwan seeks foreign aid after typhoon catastrophe
Sat Aug 15, 2009 12:31am EDT
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By Ralph Jennings
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan leaders already under fire for a perceived slow response to a typhoon that likely killed hundreds have begun accepting foreign aid after earlier refusing those offers, officials said on Saturday.
Trying to repair its image after Typhoon Morakot caused widespread landslides in southern Taiwan, the government on Friday asked major world donors for equipment, a foreign ministry official said. Aid offers were initially refused on Tuesday.
"In our first message, we said we didn't need help, just money," said Joanne Ou, head of the ministry's publicity section. "But on (Thursday) the ministry asked the disaster center what we needed. We asked them for a list."
Local media, reflecting public sentiment, bashed the government for declining aid earlier in the week.
The ministry has approached Japan, the United States and European countries for supplies such as large helicopters and mobile homes, Ou said.
Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, pressured by the public over his response to the typhoon damage, on Friday estimated the eventual death toll at more than 500, mostly people feared buried in a massive landslide in one mountain village.
Survivors and Taiwan's opposition party have accused Ma of reacting too slowly to fallout from the typhoon that hit last weekend, the island's worst since 1959 with an official death toll of 121.
Sustained pressure on Ma, who was elected in 2008, could drain support for his Nationalist Party (KMT) in city and county elections in December, analysts say.
The foreign aid snafu pointed to poor communication between government offices and may be remembered, said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taipei.
"The problem throughout is that people in government are sticking with day-to-day, non-crisis management instead of common sense," Huang said. "Using one word to describe it, I'd say communication, lack of communication."
Six countries, including China and the United States, have pledged aid, including expert damage assessment and water filtration tools. Japan and the United States may offer helicopters that can fly equipment into remote villages, Ou said.
More than 35,000 people from disaster areas in southern Taiwan have been rescued, the National Fire Agency said.
But in the worst hit village, Hsiao Lin, it was unlikely that anyone trapped on Monday in a massive landslide had survived, local officials said.
Rescue crews have been told to focus on survivors and sending in food rather than digging for bodies, said Hu Jui-chou, an army major general involved in the rescue effort.
"I was there yesterday, and it looked like a valley full of rocks and mud," he said. Continued...
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