{"id":41049,"date":"2025-10-07T12:06:51","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T10:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/europeanvalues.cz\/?p=41049"},"modified":"2025-10-15T12:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T10:04:07","slug":"the-use-and-abuse-of-disaster-state-capacity-civil-society-and-the-hualien-flood-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/europeanvalues.cz\/en\/the-use-and-abuse-of-disaster-state-capacity-civil-society-and-the-hualien-flood-response\/","title":{"rendered":"The Use and Abuse of Disaster \u2014 State Capacity, Civil Society, and the Hualien Flood Response"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"41049\" class=\"elementor elementor-41049\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-33093a51 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"33093a51\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-e-type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-3caeb179\" data-id=\"3caeb179\" data-element_type=\"column\" data-e-type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-27baa397 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"27baa397\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-no-translation=\"\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Photo: Guangfu Township, Hualien County by \u5f35\u4f03\u5a77<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-6f976efd elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"6f976efd\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-no-translation=\"\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<style>.elementor-element-6f976efd{display:none !important}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-db7f394 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"db7f394\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-e-type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-c4f3273\" data-id=\"c4f3273\" data-element_type=\"column\" data-e-type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-inner-section elementor-element elementor-element-c2af7a6 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"c2af7a6\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-e-type=\"section\" data-no-translation=\"\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-inner-column elementor-element elementor-element-e1e04cd\" data-id=\"e1e04cd\" data-element_type=\"column\" data-e-type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-2dc080b elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"2dc080b\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2>What is happening?<\/h2><p>On September 22,\u00a0 just over a month after Typhoon Podul caused large scale destruction in\u00a0 southern Taiwan, the country was subjected to the destructive impact of another tropical cyclone, <strong>Typhoon Ragasa<\/strong>, the eighteenth recorded this year by Taiwan\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/focustaiwan.tw\/society\/202509230005\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Central Weather Bureau<\/a>.<\/p><p>Although Taiwan is accustomed to the seasonal recurrence of typhoons, the overflow of a barrier lake formed on the Matai Creek in Hualien County during the year\u2019s most powerful storm resulted in unprecedented devastation across three townships.<\/p><p>Beyond the immediate human tragedy, which included fatalities and missing people, the disaster rapidly became entangled in <strong>political contestation<\/strong>. Rival factions instrumentalized the crisis, deploying divergent narratives of responsibility and blame, concerning deficiencies in both preventive measures and emergency response capacities. Such politicization stands in marked contrast to the bottom-up mobilization of civil society, as large numbers of citizens and foreigners residing in Taiwan, including <a href=\"https:\/\/focustaiwan.tw\/society\/202509290006\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">migrant workers<\/a>, converged to participate in relief operations. Their spontaneous collective engagement underscores the <strong>resilience of local communities,<\/strong> even amid systemic governance failures and partisan exploitation.<\/p><h2>\u00a0<\/h2><h2>What is the broader picture?<\/h2><p>Situated within two monsoonal systems, Taiwan is accustomed to the seasonal rhythm of intense summer rainfall and recurrent typhoons. In this instance, however, an unanticipated chain of events unfolded. A barrier lake, a body of water produced when a river\u2019s course is obstructed by landslide debris, overflowed with devastating force. The impounded waters of the lake that was formed on Matai\u2019an Creek (\u99ac\u592a\u978d\u6eaa) in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/graphics\/ASIA-WEATHER\/TAIWAN\/znvnngwlmvl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">July 2025<\/a>, breached a downstream levee, pouring into the rural townships of Guangfu (\u5149\u5fa9\u9109) and Wanrong (\u842c\u69ae\u9109), and the urban township of Fenglin (\u9cf3\u6797\u93ae), where Indigenous peoples comprise <a href=\"https:\/\/ca.hl.gov.tw\/Upload\/202006101340170694581.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">55 % <\/a>of the population. The floods resulted in 18 fatalities, most of them elderly residents who were unable to escape in time. The torrent of grey, sediment-laden water engulfed first floors of many buildings, even rising to second floors in many cases, transforming familiar domestic and communal spaces into no-go zones. Several days after the flood, six million tons of mud still covered the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taiwanplus.com\/news\/taiwan-news\/climate-and-natural-disasters\/251005003\/hualien-farmland-buried-in-mud-becomes-next-focus-of-recovery\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">farmlands<\/a>.<\/p><p>Volunteers arrived in their <a href=\"https:\/\/news.tvbs.com.tw\/english\/3003518\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tens of thousands<\/a>, some equipped with personal tools, helping to clear debris and prepare meals for the displaced. Media and the public have nicknamed them &#8220;supermen,&#8221; with some dubbed &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eAmETBqZJzM&amp;t=7s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">shovel superheroes<\/a>&#8221; and others \u00a0\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/focustaiwan.tw\/society\/202509270015\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cooking heroes<\/a>,\u201d while rainboots have become a symbol of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tdQg0dujThw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">relief efforts<\/a>.<\/p><p>The government deployed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taipeitimes.com\/News\/taiwan\/archives\/2025\/10\/01\/2003844720\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">10000<\/a> military personnel to assist in disaster response operations, while Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (\u9867\u7acb\u96c4) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taipeitimes.com\/News\/taiwan\/archives\/2025\/10\/01\/2003844720\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pledged<\/a>\u00a0 that public services in Hualien would be restored in time for the Mid-Autumn Festival, one of Taiwan\u2019s most significant ritual festivals.<\/p><p>Looking ahead, the authorities also announced preventive policy measures to enhance future preparedness. The Ministry of the Interior stated that evacuation alerts for large-scale mudslide and flood events, including those associated with barrier lakes, will henceforth be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taipeitimes.com\/News\/taiwan\/archives\/2025\/09\/29\/2003844605\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">upgraded<\/a>\u00a0 to tsunami-level warnings to convey a heightened state of emergency and ensure timely public response.<\/p><p>Amid ongoing disaster relief efforts, tensions have also surfaced between local and central authorities, particularly concerning the timeliness of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twreporter.org\/a\/mataian-creek-barrier-lake\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">evacuation warnings<\/a> and the decision-making processes related to budget allocation for relief <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vg1fPR4VfAU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">operations<\/a>. This friction became particularly visible during Premier Cho Jung-tai\u2019s (\u5353\u69ae\u6cf0) official inspection of the disaster zone in Hualien, where he and legislator Fu Kun-chi (\u5085\u5d10\u8401) engaged in a <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ltn.com.tw\/news\/politics\/breakingnews\/5189243\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">public confrontation<\/a> over responsibility for the disaster management. Meanwhile, allegations emerged that local authorities had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vg1fPR4VfAU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">discouraged<\/a> volunteer participation in relief operations, further highlighting the tensions surrounding coordination, authority, and civic engagement in Taiwan\u2019s disaster governance framework.<\/p><p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><h2>Why does it matter?<\/h2><p>The Hualien barrier lake flood reveals not only the environmental vulnerabilities but also the institutional and political fragilities that shape Taiwan\u2019s disaster governance. As climate change intensifies the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events, the boundaries between natural and political conflict are increasingly blurred. The competing narratives of responsibility and politicization of relief highlight persistent coordination challenges between local and central authorities. The flood further underscores calls for rethinking how Taiwan\u2019s disaster response integrates civil society participation as an essential component of resilience, rather than as a substitute for institutional capacity. Ultimately it serves as a reminder that effective disaster management in Taiwan must go beyond engineering and logistics to address trust, accountability, and inclusion within the broader framework of democratic governance.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo: Guangfu Township, Hualien County by \u5f35\u4f03\u5a77 Foto: Obec Kuang-fu, okres Chua-lien, autor: \u5f35\u4f03\u5a77 What is happening? On September 22,\u00a0 just over a month after Typhoon Podul caused large scale destruction in\u00a0 southern Taiwan, the country was subjected to the destructive impact of another tropical cyclone, Typhoon Ragasa, the eighteenth recorded this year by Taiwan\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":41051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[500],"tags":[538],"class_list":["post-41049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-olimpia-kot"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Use and Abuse of Disaster \u2014 State Capacity, Civil Society, and the Hualien Flood Response - European Values Center for Security Policy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/europeanvalues.cz\/en\/the-use-and-abuse-of-disaster-state-capacity-civil-society-and-the-hualien-flood-response\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Use and Abuse of Disaster \u2014 State Capacity, Civil Society, and the Hualien Flood Response - European Values Center for Security Policy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Photo: Guangfu Township, Hualien County by \u5f35\u4f03\u5a77 Foto: Obec Kuang-fu, okres Chua-lien, autor: \u5f35\u4f03\u5a77 What is happening? On September 22,\u00a0 just over a month after Typhoon Podul caused large scale destruction in\u00a0 southern Taiwan, the country was subjected to the destructive impact of another tropical cyclone, Typhoon Ragasa, the eighteenth recorded this year by Taiwan\u2019s [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/europeanvalues.cz\/en\/the-use-and-abuse-of-disaster-state-capacity-civil-society-and-the-hualien-flood-response\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"European Values Center for Security Policy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-07T10:06:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-15T10:04:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/europeanvalues.cz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/TW_Guangfu_Township-Hualien_County.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2160\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1136\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ond\u0159ej Ber\u00e1nek\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ond\u0159ej Ber\u00e1nek\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/europeanvalues.cz\\\/the-use-and-abuse-of-disaster-state-capacity-civil-society-and-the-hualien-flood-response\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/europeanvalues.cz\\\/the-use-and-abuse-of-disaster-state-capacity-civil-society-and-the-hualien-flood-response\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ond\u0159ej Ber\u00e1nek\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/europeanvalues.cz\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/7724fb271acacd215231c937a200a510\"},\"headline\":\"The Use and Abuse of Disaster \u2014 State Capacity, Civil Society, and the Hualien Flood Response\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-07T10:06:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-15T10:04:07+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/europeanvalues.cz\\\/the-use-and-abuse-of-disaster-state-capacity-civil-society-and-the-hualien-flood-response\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1663,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/europeanvalues.cz\\\/en\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/europeanvalues.cz\\\/the-use-and-abuse-of-disaster-state-capacity-civil-society-and-the-hualien-flood-response\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/europeanvalues.cz\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/10\\\/TW_Guangfu_Township-Hualien_County.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Olimpia Kot\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Articles\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/europeanvalues.cz\\\/the-use-and-abuse-of-disaster-state-capacity-civil-society-and-the-hualien-flood-response\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/europeanvalues.cz\\\/the-use-and-abuse-of-disaster-state-capacity-civil-society-and-the-hualien-flood-response\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Use and Abuse of Disaster \u2014 State Capacity, Civil Society, and the Hualien Flood Response - 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