With a spate of earthquakes above magnitude 6 hitting Taiwan, TaiwanTalks asks what makes the country so vulnerable to natural disaster, and asks whether the nation is ready for the next big natural – or manmade – emergency.
Could Taiwan suffer an earthquake that triggers a volcano eruption? Climate change is affecting countries around the world bringing extreme weather events to even temperate countries in Europe – but how is it affecting Taiwan?
Formerly Minister of the Interior, Lee Hong-yuan, now Professor of Hydraulic Engineering at National Taiwan University, an expert in environmental disasters and disaster prevention, and Peng Chi-ming, President of Taiwan Disaster Industry Association and the Founder & CEO of WeatherRisk Explore, help us explore the strengths and weaknesses of Taiwan’s disaster response.
We also spoke to Leo Bosner a research fellow at Western Pacific Fellowship Project and former U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency planning chief, currently a member of the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM).
Topics discussed:
- Taiwan’s location above two plates in the Earth’s crust
- Thousands of old residential buildings in capital Taipei prone to damage or collapse
- Political deadlocks on changing the nation’s Constitution in relation to disaster management
- Country’s world-class reputation in typhoon management
- Taiwan’s second-deadliest quake and magnitude 7.3 quake on the Richter scale the 1999 Jiji Earthquake
- Impact of an eruption from an active volcano located close to Taipei
- How sophisticated is the technology that helps Taiwan predict these incidents
- How 911 in the U.S. and March 11, 2011 in Japan forced these countries to reorganize their emergency management
- What Taiwan could do to improve the structure of its disaster management
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