Climate and Natural Disasters

Guangfu Schools Reopen, Residents Argue Over Subsidy Eligibility

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By Patrick Chen/Irene Lin

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Guangfu Township in Hualien is welcoming some students back to school after a deadly flash flood in late September. Flood survivors can now apply for subsidies and lost identification documents. But there's controversy over evacuees staying at the schools and over who is eligible for subsidies.

You didn’t even have supporting measures in place.

Yet, you went ahead and issued orders

that the school wants this and that.

REPORTER:

Parents in flood-stricken Guangfu township in eastern Taiwan’s Hualien county raise their voice at school staff, questioning their children’s safety and quality of education.

An elementary school became an evacuation center after the region was flooded by a mountain lake that burst its banks. But after two weeks of cleanup efforts, it’s welcoming students back, with one caveat: that they share their campus with over 170 flood victims still staying there.

The school and county officials say the students and evacuees are separated on either side of the campus, and only teachers are allowed to enter the students’ areas.

Chen Chia-fu (SOCIAL AFFAIRS DIRECTOR):  

In a challenging time like this  

we should work together to overcome hardships.  

We promise to return the campus to students soon.

REPORTER:

Taiwan’s Cabinet is also rolling out a service to make it easier for Guangfu residents to apply for subsidies to make it through this trying time and to reapply for lost identification documents.

Chi Lien-cheng (MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO):  

[It] allows all Guangfu locals to apply  

for all central and county government subsidies.  

All related administrative procedures are simplified  

in this one-stop service platform.

REPORTER:

Officials say all villages within the red-lined evacuation zone are eligible for financial compensation, including some areas that were not flooded.

But this is sparking anger from peripheral villages further south.

Residents there say while their homes were not buried in mud, their lives have been deeply affected.

Lin Shu-chen (DAQUAN VILLAGE CHIEF):  

This is unfair.  

If that’s how you determine who can apply  

Daquan village has also been affected by the flood.  

All the sludge [that was dug out] is in my village  

and there’s so much dust  

from Provincial Highway 9.  

Our residents’ quality of life is not good.

REPORTER:

As of Tuesday, the death toll remains at 18, with 6 people still missing.

Officials are also asking volunteers to be careful while working on wreckage, after one volunteer died when a wound got infected.

With a long road to recovery still expected, officials and locals are taking it one step at a time, with everyone’s safety a top priority.

Patrick Chen and Irene Lin for TaiwanPlus.