Taiwan military finds 1,000 stranded by typhoon, death toll tops 100+

KAOHSIUNG COUNTY, Taiwan, Aug. 12 Kyodo - Taiwan's death toll in the wake of Typhoon Morakot reached 103, the island's Central Disaster Emergency Operation Center said Wednesday.

But the military confirmed it has discovered about 1,000 villagers, feared
lost, still alive although stranded by floods and landslides triggered by the
storm.
Still, the death toll is expected to rise, as hundreds -- possibly thousands --
of people from in hard-hit mountain towns remain unaccounted for, with
Kaohsiung County Magistrate Yang Chiu-hsing estimating ''10,000 to 20,000''
residents are stranded in the county, the heart of the disaster zone.
Four days after the typhoon hit, accurate numbers of the missing and dead
remain hazy.
But the military's discovery of survivors Tuesday and Wednesday raised hopes in
the county's devastated Cishan Township where relatives of the missing gathered
at makeshift sites for rescue operations.
At a local middle school, helicopters ferried in some of the newly discovered
survivors and President Ma Ying-jeou arrived to promise aid for the region.
''The military is making rescue and relief operations their top priority,'' he
said, even as some relatives turned hysterical and begged the president to do
more.
Troops in nearby villages -- some wiped out by landslides -- reported via
satellite phone the discovery of hundreds of stranded residents on Tuesday
night, Hu Jui-chou, an Army official involved in the operations, told
reporters.
In Cishan, a Chinook helicopter landed on the school's soccer field with
supplies and survivors.
Some tearful family reunions unfolded, but other survivors turned away dejected
when no one from their families emerged from the chopper.
Moments later, Ma's motorcade arrived and refugees from one affected village,
Hsiao Lin, began wailing and pleading for stepped up rescue efforts.
''Today's weather is not very good, but we will take advantage of every window
of opportunity, because there are just too many people on the mountains waiting
to be saved,'' Ma said, standing in a downpour.
Amid the rain and waning daylight, the military, he added, turned to
airdropping supplies to the stranded instead of immediately bringing them out.
Operational safety has become an issue since Tuesday when a helicopter crashed
while transporting medical personnel and supplies to an affected area.
Three servicemen died when their UH-1H smashed into the side of a mountain,
forcing the National Airborne Service Corps to ground its UH-1H fleet for
maintenance.
More military helicopters were called to compensate.
The island's Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture estimated damage to crops and
livestock at NT$8.8 billion (US$270 million), making the typhoon the
second-most devastating on record for the island's agricultural sector.
Morakot, which means ''emerald'' in Thai, lashed the island from Friday to
Saturday and triggered the worst flooding in the island's south in 50 years.
TV footage showed torrents that ripped away embankments, roads, and, in some
cases, whole buildings.
The Ma administration has come in for heavy criticism for its handling of the
storm, particularly because the Central Weather Bureau failed to predict
Morakot would dump record-breaking amounts of rain on some areas.
China Times, whose editorial stance tends to favor Ma's ruling Nationalist
Party, blamed Ma for ''forgetting his role as commander-in-chief'' of the
island's armed forces as the storm hit.
The legislature pledged to investigate possible negligence in the government's
handling of the storm.
Speaking to Ma at the school, one relative of a missing Hsiao Lin resident
said, ''We're waiting here without any information -- there's nobody to tell us
what's happening.
''If our families are alive, we need to see them; if they're dead, we need to
know.''
==Kyodo