8 août 2010

Typhoon Morakot - il y a une année

Beaucoup de photos édifiantes :


tout le monde se rappelle de l'hôtel qui s'effondre dans le fleuve en furie.


Et aussi cette nouvelle terrifiante le 14 août 2009 :

"More than 300 people are now presumed to have died in a remote Taiwanese village that was buried in a landslide after a devastating typhoon struck last weekend, precipitating the worst floods on the island for 50 years." 

 

Morakot : à Xiaolin, un an après, on continue de panser les plaies 

Extraits :

  • "[...] Xiaolin, village martyr situé dans le district de Kaohsiung et rayé de la carte, le 8 août 2009 [...]"
  • "un autel était dressé, face à l’impensable : une zone de pierres, de gravats et de boue totalement aplanie. « Rien n’a changé, tout est resté comme au jour qui a suivi la catastrophe »"

Extraits :
  • "Yu-fang, a teenager living in Xiaolin village, can often be seen burning letters alone after Typhoon Morakot nearly destroyed her hometown last year. Eight of her ex-classmates in elementary school lost their lives in that disaster. Twelve months later, Yu-fang still find it hard to deal with the fact they are gone. She can only try to communicate with them in one burned letter after another, taking comfort in the hope that the incinerated correspondence may reach her friends in the other dimension."
  • "Mr. Wong, aged 46, who used to have a happy family of ten, including a grandson that was barely one-month-old when the typhoon hit, is now left all by himself. And he sometimes wonders whether survival means a greater misfortune for him than death."

A ma connaissance, seules deux familles ont pu survivre sur place au moment de la catastrophe. J'ai vu l'un d'entre eux parler de cette épreuve.

Il parait que la majorité des gens du village étaient issus d'une minorité ethinque appelée "Pinpo".


Quel bilan aujourd'hui ?


1 - Sur le désastre :


Extraits :
  • "The government has made every effort to help survivors of Typhoon Morakot get back on their feet and bolster disaster prevention a year after the storm, the deadliest in a century, wreaked havoc in Taiwan. But the effort has not been efficient or farsighted enough."
  • "The monster typhoon devastated southern Taiwan with massive flooding and mudslides unseen in Taiwan in five decades and left more than 700 people dead or unaccounted for. Among the battered areas, Kaohsiung's Siaolin village was obliterated, with over 500 villagers buried alive."
  • "Japanese disaster prevention experts visited Siaolin after the storm hit to investigate the causes behind the tragedy and then used their findings to adjust Japan's disaster prevention measures. They concluded that the village was buried because of a "deep collapse" -- in this case a landslide 84-meters deep rather than the typical two to three meters -- triggered by unusually heavy downpours, and that major landslides could occur on slopes with only slight inclines."
2 - L'élan de solidarité du peuple :


Extrait :
  • At an event to mark the first anniversary of Typhoon Morakot, Siew said the damage caused by the typhoon was extremely serious, as reflected in TV reporting at home and abroad, but due to the immediate and courageous efforts of rescuers and disaster relief workers, the damage from the storm was reduced. Most of the relief workers were volunteers, but they engaged in acts of kindness and expected nothing in return, Siew said.

C'est l'un des plus grand élan de solidarité que j'ai connus.

3 - Le gouvernement passif devant la catastrophe :


Extrait :
  • The storm brought excessive rain to Southern Taiwan, killing more than 700 people and destroying entire villages. Criticism of the slow and ineffective handling of relief work by the government resulted in the fall of the Cabinet and in slumping support for President Ma Ying-jeou.
C'était trois mètres d'eau, je crois.

4 - La reconstruction :

Extraits :
  • "The first 154 permanent houses built in Pingtung County’s Changjhih Township (長治) for residents displaced by Typhoon Morakot were officially declared ready for occupancy yesterday ahead of the first anniversary of the disaster tomorrow. The community will house Morakot victims from seven Aboriginal villages in Wutai (霧台) and Sandimen (三地門) townships. It is the second Morakot housing project [...]. The first, which opened in February, is in Kaohsiung County’s Shanlin Township (杉林)."
  • "A total of 291 sites were badly damaged by Typhoon Morakot. Of those, 136 are considered safe to live in and 155 have been deemed unsafe. Three-quarters of the affected people were Aborigines. Permanent houses in 30 sites can accomodate 2,583 households."

5 - Le rejet des déplacements :
  • "Hundreds of Taiwanese indigenous villagers staged a protest on Saturday against the government's resettlement plans ahead of the one-year anniversary of a deadly typhoon. "Guard the homeland" and "oppose forced resettlement", shouted the protesters, from central and southern Taiwan, as they gathered in a square leading to the presidential office in the capital Taipei."
  • ""We are forced to move out of our lands and this will destroy our tribes and cultures," said organiser Omi Wiling. "We want to have a say in the resettlement process. The government neither understands nor respects our way of life." About 500 villagers camped in the square late Friday to demand President Ma Ying-jeou hear their requests, he said."
  • Thousands of indigenous villagers were left homeless when Typhoon Morakot ravaged Taiwan last year, leaving more than 700 people dead or missing in one of the island's worst natural disasters.
  • "The authorities have since built 1,480 new houses accommodating nearly 6,000 people, according to a cabinet statement. Taiwan's government stressed that it has never forced the villagers to move and that all resettlement are voluntary."
  • "The government faced a wave of public anger over its handling of the disaster, plunging Ma into his worst political crisis since taking office in 2008. His approval rating fell plummeted to 16 percent in the aftermath of the typhoon, compared with to an all-time high of 79 percent in the days after his victory at the polls in March 2008."

Je me rappelle que le président avait fait ce qu'on a appelé : "President Ma's apology tour".

6 - Ensuite la menace du dépot de plainte au niveau international :
  • ""Hundreds of Typhoon Morakot aboriginal victims gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard yesterday for a protest against government’s policy to relocate villagers instead of reconstructing their hometown, saying they will file an international lawsuit since no positive response obtained from the government, the local media reported Sunday."
  • "We’re opposed to government’s relocation plan instead of reconstruction of our hometown, demanding a home surrounded by mountain, river and forest and not a dorm-styled village, Omi Wilang was quoted as saying. Taiwan government specified alarm area, requesting indigenous peoples to sign up an agreement, through which they acknowledge their hometown and land are dangerous and ought to be taken up by the government. The move, indicated Omi Wilang, was against United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples’ Basic Law, saying they would file an international lawsuit with the assistance of human right attorneys."
  • "In response, Chern Jenn-chuan, Deputy Minister of Public Construction Commission, Executive Yuan said Saturday that aboriginal residents took up 70% of 19,191 inhabitants in 160 locations that have safety concerns within the disastrous area. Chern further noted that about more than 7,000 aborigines had accepted relocation to the permanent houses and the remaining chose to stay at their hometown, saying that the government would never force victims to move if they’re not willing to, but would reinforce disastrous prevention facilities and inspection." 

7 - Et les déclarations du président le jour d'avant :

  • "President Ma Ying-jeou, in a break from his usually moderate image, attacked the opposition party Saturday in a bid to drum up support for the ruling party's candidates in the five special municipalities where mayoral elections will be held later this year."
  • "The president, who doubles as the chairman of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) [...]."
  • "Ma, without directly naming DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen and former Premier Su Tseng-chang, who are running for office in Xinbei City and Taipei City respectively, said that officials under the DPP administration had "done many harmful things to the nation over the past eight years." On the issue of ECFA, over which the two parties are bitterly divided, Ma warned the DPP that "if you are against the ECFA, you are making yourself the enemy of the people.""
Encore un article sur les déclaration du président la veille :

Ma says voters cannot trust the DPP, August 8, 2010 11:49 pm TWN, The China Post

Extraits :
  • "President Ma Ying-jeou yesterday blasted the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), claiming its candidates for the year-end elections all harmed Taiwan while serving in the government. “How can we trust them (the DPP candidates)?” Ma asked while addressing the ruling Kuomintang's (KMT) 18th National Congress. But the DPP camp dismissed Ma's remarks as “election talk.”"
  • "All the DPP contenders in the year-end race held high ranking government positions, including the premiership, during those eight years, and they all did harm to the island, Ma said. In contrast, Ma portrayed the KMT as a party of reform which has managed to ease cross-strait tensions and revive the island's economy since he took office."
  • "He called on the DPP to stop opposing the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) recently signed between Taiwan and China. The DPP will be the enemy of the entire nation if it continues to reject the agreement, Ma said. Tsai cited a string of controversies — including the row over the importation of high-risk U.S. beef products and the mismanagement of rescue work following the Typhoon Morakot floods last August — as proof of the KMT's incompetence. “Ma should learn the lessons,” Tsai said. “President Ma's duty is to run the country, not the elections.”"

Mais pourquoi donc de telles déclarations si aggressives, à la veille d'un anniversaire si douloureux pour la population ? Pourquoi ne pas se concentrer sur cet évènement si important ?

Pourquoi donc parler des élections juste à ce moment-là - elles n'ont lieu qu'en novembre prochain, c'est si loin !

Enfin, quel dommage que le président Ma disparaisse tout d'un coup à ce moment pour que surgisse alors le "KMT Chairman" ! La population a besoin d'un président qui s'occupe de panser les plaies laissées par la catastrophe, ce n'est pas le moment pour faire une campagne électorale.


Encore un article sur les propos du président Ma :


J'aime bien le titre !

Extrait :
  • "Ma's emotional rhetoric may have constituted a political tactic to frame the November 27 poll to boost the flagging campaigns of the KMT's own candidates and utilize the touted achievement of signing the ECFA as the KMT's primary electoral theme. "
  • "Ma may also have been trying to distract attention away a sit-in then taking place in front of the presidential office by indigenous peoples over his government's inept performance in reconstruction after Typhoon Morakot which struck southern Taiwan a year ago Sunday."

En tout cas, la Chine, à travers l'agence Xinhua, a immédiatement relayé les déclarations aggréssives de Ma - en les adaptant à sa propre réthorique :

Ma Ying-jeou : les accords signés par Taïwan et la partie continentale de Chine atténuent les tensions, Xinhua
 
Extraits :
  • "Le dirigeant taïwanais Ma Ying-jeou a déclaré samedi que les accords signés ces deux dernières années par Taïwan et la partie continentale de la Chine avaient permis d'atténuer les tensions entre les deux rives et d'améliorer les relations bilatérales."
  • "Taïwan a perçu la bonne volonté du côté de la partie continentale [...]."
  • "L'ECFA profitera beaucoup à Taïwan, et le parti d'opposition prendra position contre la population si elle continue à s'y opposer, a affirmé M. Ma, également président du KMT."
En fait, la Chine a  accentué la pression sur Taiwan d'une façon considérable, puisque le nombre de missiles augmente considérablement, contrairement à ce que disent Ma et Xinhua.
 
D'autre part, il semble plutôt qu'un fossé se creuse entre le président et la population, plutôt qu'entre le parti d'opposition et la population. C'est notamment le cas au moment de l'anniversaire de Morakot. Par contre, Ma et Xinhua semble tout à fait en phase sur un autre point : dans la bataille électorale à venir, c'est l'ECFA qui sera le cheval de bataille contre le DPP. 
 
Mais ceci ne peut-il pas se retourner contre ceux qui font cette promotion ? A voir.


Aujourd'hui ...

Et voilà qu'une catastrophe similaire se produit en Chine, 2000 personnes enterrées, etc. Le 8-8, c'est pas vraiment un jour le chance, contrairement à la superstition. Chaque année, il se passe quelque chose ce jour-là ?