Guangfu Flood Cleanup: Volunteers and Officials Work Together
Bulldozers and excavators continue to clear out streets and homes a week after a breached natural dam inundated this town in eastern Taiwan’s Hualien County.
Over half of the town of Guangfu is still submerged in mud, especially lowland areas, after the Matai’an river overflowed.
While emergency teams continue to search for the six remaining missing people, officials say they’ve finished installing temporary levees to prevent the river from overflowing if the dam breaches again.
Workers are clearing the mud and debris around the clock and transporting it out of town.
There’s also been an outpouring of civilian volunteer help in the past week. But since Monday, many volunteers have gone home for work and school. Officials here say they hope more volunteers come, but that it’s important they wait for authorities to assign them locations, rather than wandering around town.
After [volunteers] arrive at the affected area
we will assign them at the Guangfu train station.
Military trucks will then take them
to one of the seven affected villages.
Currently, all vehicles for cleanup operations
can only drive in one direction.
If we allow two-way traffic
and have too many people on site
it not only poses safety risks
but slows down our operations.
We welcome volunteers to join us
but also hope once they enter the affected area
they will follow the coordination by the military.
Are you here to volunteer?
Bringing one person’s strength together
can become a powerful force.
Come join us!
At the Guangfu train station, organizers of civil groups stand in front of their booths to guide volunteers to resources and tools needed for cleanup. There are also officials on site to guide them to shuttle buses heading to their assigned places.
When there’s some disaster and big help needed, evryone would come together. So this is something good, and it’s nice to see somehting like this in Taiwan. Like I’m seeing people coming from Kaohsiung, Taipei Hsinchu, everywhere. Coming from everywhere. So it’s really nice to see something like this.
I’m really grateful for them.
The government’s job is to take care of Matai’an river.
We’ll work on our homes ourselves.
The military and volunteers are working to make cleanup operations more efficient as they brace for a second wave of volunteers over a second long weekend coming up. With another typhoon approaching Taiwan from its southeast and more heavy rainfall expected here in the next few days, locals only hope that their cleanup progress will not go to waste.
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