Taiwanese Who Felt It First Still Reeling From Last Fall’s Quake

More than six months after a devastating earthquake killed 2,297 people and left tens of thousands of Taiwanese homeless, the prospects for recovery in this unassuming region seem almost as distant as they did the day after the temblor.

Thousands of residents still live in cramped temporary dwellings. Little rebuilding has begun, while the low-interest loans promised by the government remain tied up in bureaucratic limbo. Outside aid has evaporated.

At least 32 people reportedly have committed suicide in despair over their quake-ravaged lives, their loved ones subjected to yet more tragedy stemming from the most destructive shaker to hit Taiwan in more than half a century.

At the same time, the rest of the island’s residents have resumed life as usual, with the calamity and its victims relegated to the backs of their minds.

“The country has forgotten us,” lamented Pai-Hsien Pang, the commissioner of Nantou County here in central Taiwan.

Nantou bore the brunt of the magnitude 7.6 quake, which ripped through this place in the early hours of Sept. 21 as residents slept. Within a few seconds, concrete towers were reduced to mounds of rubble, whole families were snuffed out, surrounding hillsides were displaced, and streets around the city of Puli, near the quake’s epicenter, were left buckled like a dragon’s back. Overall damage was estimated at $3.3 billion.

Cash donations, food, clothing and blankets poured in from around Taiwan and the rest of the world as media revealed the devastation.

But since then, victims and local officials say, the headlines have disappeared--and so has outside concern.

“The enthusiasm has apparently cooled to the point where no one seems to care very much,” the China Post, based in the island’s capital, Taipei, said in a recent editorial.

Even politicians campaigning in Taiwan’s presidential election last month paid scant attention to the needs of those affected by the quake--probably because this mountainous area is not so rich in votes, residents surmised bitterly.

“Sometimes we’d see the candidates on TV expressing their opinions about conditions here, and we’d scoff at them because they don’t know the problems here at all,” said Chang Ya-chi, 35.

Chang, her husband and their three children spent nearly a month sleeping and shivering outdoors in a tent after their home was destroyed. They moved in with Chang’s mother as winter set in.

On Christmas Eve, the family finally landed a slot in the temporary apartments set up throughout Nantou County like long rows of barracks. The five members of Chang’s household now are crammed into an area of just 280 square feet, one-fifth the size of their previous home and about the area of many living rooms in Southern California.

But they count themselves lucky to have secured public housing. Some quake survivors say many people who were left homeless died of exposure, and the survivors blame the government for moving too slowly.

“Only the Red Cross and some private groups have been here to express their concern,” Chang said one recent afternoon as she wiped down her kitchen, which consists of a stove top. The bathroom, a tiny cubicle, was two paces away.

“None of the [presidential] candidates came here to see us,” she added, voicing the sense of neglect that many quake victims feel.

Demands Made to Speed Assistance

Trying to break through official indifference are Pang, the county’s top elected official, and the 9-21 Earthquake Survivors Assn., which staged a demonstration in Taipei on March 11, a week before the election. More than 1,000 protesters paraded through the city to each of the major contenders’ campaign headquarters, demanding that recovery efforts be speeded up.

It was a particularly notable moment for Pang, who has become the disaster-stricken area’s most outspoken advocate, willing to say or do whatever it takes to get help. When Vice President Lien Chan, the nominee of the ruling Nationalist Party, pledged to speed up assistance, Pang turned his back on his past affiliation with an opposition party and urged his constituents to vote for Lien.

Lien lost. The winner, Chen Shui-bian, toured the earthquake area a few days after the election and said he would form a task force to investigate “why there is such a big gap between the needs of the victims and the government’s policies.”

As a result of that gap, parts of central Taiwan remain in complete disrepair. Crazily cracked buildings still await the wrecking ball. Schoolchildren in uniform troop past plains of rubble as clouds of dust swirl into their faces.

The local economy, which depends heavily on tourism, continues to sag.

“I tell the [central] government that they should address these problems soon or it’ll drag the whole Taiwanese economy down,” Pang said.

In Nantou--Taiwan’s second-largest county--the authorities have doled out $570 million to quake survivors. The families of the 906 county residents killed or classified as missing received $33,000 for each victim. Those whose homes either collapsed or were destroyed were given $6,700 or $3,300, respectively. The remaining money helped cover rental costs and other expenditures.

While the survivors welcomed the subsidies, the sums were far short of what was needed to get them back on their feet. Most of those left homeless are depending on the $3 billion the national government has earmarked as low- or even no-interest loans for rebuilding.

Based on the damage in Nantou, the county should be entitled to about half the loan money, Pang said. But so far, less than 10% has been given out.

Government Loans ‘Impossible’ to Acquire

Banks administering the government program have refused to grant loans unless the applicants--including victims who lost virtually everything--first pay off their previous mortgages or put up a large amount of collateral.

“This is impossible,” Pang said with carefully measured fury. “The people have no money.”

Neither does Pang’s government, which is operating out of the Nantou city sports arena because its former buildings are unusable.

There is too little in the county coffers to pay for repairs to government offices or infrastructure damage not covered by the central authorities, such as the many roads shattered in the quake.

“We don’t even have enough money to pay our local government salaries,” Pang said. “The public expects us to work quickly, but we have no money, no staff, so speed is impossible.”

The central government has blamed municipal officials for the slow pace of recovery. Pang acknowledges that factional fighting between local leaders has occasionally held up the distribution of aid.

But he also accuses Taipei of providing almost no help beyond its initial infusion of cash. His staff is desperate for reinforcements, including more surveyors and building inspectors to process licenses for reconstruction.

Tenfold Increase in Building Applications

At present, the building department still has just seven people, who before the quake worked through about 200 licenses a month. Now the number of applications has shot up tenfold.

“If we increased our licensing force by a factor of 10, from seven to 70, it would still take a year to process all the applications,” Pang declared.

Residents here are encouraged, but not entirely convinced, by President-elect Chen’s promises.

“Of course we are looking forward to seeing something different” from the current state of inaction, said Huang Chi Hsiang of the 9-21 Earthquake Survivors Assn. “But it’s too early to tell.”

Pang is blunter.

“This was a disaster for Nantou,” the commissioner said. “If the government doesn’t resolve the problems, then it will be a disaster for them.”