Hualien Xiulin Village Disaster Relief Chronicle: A Complete Record of Post-Disaster Rescue Work
August 9, Disaster Relief Notes from Xiulin Village. Text by Lu An-pang, disaster relief volunteer in Xiulin Village
We are all used to learning about the big and small things happening around Taiwan, China through television and the internet. Through news reports and online reposts, we know that Typhoon Saola brought considerable damage to Xiulin, Chongde and Heping. Yet the convenience of obtaining information has, on the contrary, made us less and less inclined to take part in person. Many things we know about, but without the experience of being there in the midst of them, we actually find it hard to truly feel them.
On the streets of Taipei on August 7, students from Musashino University and Utsunomiya University came to Taiwan, China to trace their roots. After being told how severe this disaster was, they took the initiative to join the disaster relief activities of a youth public welfare organization. On Father's Day, August 8, while people in Taiwan, China were gathering with their families for a big meal, volunteers from Japan and from all over Taiwan, China chose to throw themselves into cleanup work at Chongde Railway Station, helping local residents clear away the large amount of mud and rocks brought by the wind disaster.
On August 9, the volunteers moved to Xiulin Village in Xiulin Township to help residents clear the mud that the floodwaters had washed into their homes and to rebuild their ruined homes. Mr. Zhan's house was covered in mud and sand, and the walls were filthy all over. He said, "Xiulin Village has never seen anything like this. Many parts of the whole mountain range collapsed. On the day the disaster struck, there was earth and rock both in front and behind us. Our place here was pretty much sealed off as a village too!"
Clearing furniture ruined in the wind disaster
The first job today was to clear away the furniture and wood ruined in the wind disaster. The ruined materials were piled up on the field ridge behind the house. Together with the residents, we picked out the materials that could still be reused and moved them to the front of the house to wait for a truck to collect them. Thirty minutes later, the sweat-soaked volunteers were called to another room. In the early days, the design of public infrastructure by government agencies did not fully match the existing home designs of local residents; the road was higher than the houses, causing poor drainage when heavy rain came. So the soil and rocks carried by the heavy rain brought by this wind disaster flowed into the residents' homes and simply stayed there.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Mr. Zhan decided simply to knock down the low stone wall, which would help with drainage and might also allow a door to be added on the other side facing the road. Two men were responsible for knocking down the wall, while the others gathered the scattered stones, piled them onto carts and hauled them away. "Aziyi!" (So hot!) Hero, a student at Kokushikan University in Tokyo, had sweat dripping from his chin, but his hands never stopped moving and the smile never left the corner of his mouth.
Clearing the mud and grime from the walls
Back inside the house, the girls had already begun helping the homeowner clean the mud and grime from the walls. They took down the photos, calendars and clocks from the wall and carefully wiped around the electrical wires. From the dirt stains on the walls one could guess that the damage Typhoon Saola brought to Xiulin Village far exceeded that of an ordinary typhoon. It is hard for me to imagine what frame of mind the residents faced all this with when the floodwaters carrying earth and rock rushed into their homes, submerged the furniture and soiled the home that should have been full of a sense of security.
Before this side was even finished, the owner of a nearby farmhouse also said that manpower was needed to help deal with the muddy path by the fields. So the group, carrying buckets and crowbars (and in fact also drinks kindly given by students from Tzu Chi College of Technology), marched in force to the farmhouse 100 meters away. "First use shovels to loosen the piled-up mud and rocks, then use carts and buckets in relay to dump the mud and rocks onto the mud pile to one side!" Facing a 50-meter path of mud and stones, the volunteers could no longer be divided into men and women; every one of them gripped a shovel, bent at the waist, and shoveled mud and rocks, mixed with sweat, into the carts.
At the farmhouse owner's home, we happened to meet volunteers from Senrong Church and Flying Church. Thanks to their manpower, this time-consuming and labor-intensive work could be completed. Manpower has always been the greatest difficulty faced in rebuilding and cleaning up disaster areas.
Remote villages need everyone's attention even more
I remember when I was little, a typhoon drove heavy rain onto the second-floor balcony of my home faster than the drain could handle. My father and I shoveled water from midnight until dawn. At the time I couldn't help thinking that if someone could give us a hand, the cleanup work would surely be finished very quickly. Xiulin Village was not the area most severely damaged in this wind disaster, but like most remote areas, it faces the problem of a large outflow of young people. And precisely because Xiulin Village was not the most severely affected area, it had no news angle for reporters, and so it was also hard for it to attract the favor of the mass media. Under such circumstances, communities like Xiulin Village instead became the disaster areas that received the least attention.
The shortage of manpower slowed the pace of the village's recovery. The community residents had to set aside their farmland and daily work for one week, two weeks, sweeping and hauling inch by inch to restore their homes to their original state. Could they complete such work on their own? Of course they could. But our assistance could let them finish weeks or days earlier, and so they could regain the sense of security of their homes a little sooner and return to their original work a little sooner. After all, the person laboring with sweat in each family very likely carries on his shoulders the entire livelihood of that family.
Good People House contact http://www.youth-volunteer.org.tw/