Aid shipments arrive in Taiwan

THE first shipments of foreign aid arrived yesterday as Taiwan struggled to reach more than 1,000 people still stranded a week after its deadliest typhoon in half a century.

As plastic sheeting for makeshift housing arrived from the US and water purification tablets came from Australia, taxi drivers in the capital, Taipei, pitched in as well, driving rice and instant noodles to the island’s hard-hit rural south.

President Ma Ying-jeou, who has announced that the death toll from Morakot is likely to exceed 500, offered another apology for his government’s response to the disaster after families said more lives could have been saved. “Sorry we were late,” he told people in Pingtung County. “As the president, I will take full responsibility in getting the remaining work done well.”

The head of Taiwan’s relief operation, Mao Chi-kuo, denied mounting criticism that authorities had failed to evacuate villagers soon enough, blaming the record rainfall instead.

“We received in three days the amount of rainfall that would normally accumulate over one year,” he said.

Mao said 3,000 villagers had been airlifted over the weekend, leaving about 1,000 still stranded in the ruins of flooded villages. All together, 35,000 villagers have been rescued from 44 hard-hit villages in the south, he said.

“We understand that people wanted us to do better and do it faster,” he said.

Resettlement of an estimated 7,000 people whose homes were destroyed could speed up after a batch of prefabricated houses was expected to arrive from Britain yesterday, with more coming from China, the country’s relief centre said.