Typhoon Morakot and Institutional Changes in Taiwan

Typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan in 2009 with numerous rainfalls and caused nearly 700 deaths from mudslides and huge agricultural losses that have been estimated to be reaching NT$14.59 billion. For reconstructing the damaged buildings, traffic and houses and avoiding the same problems happen again, some institutional changes were made in post-Morakot period. The major changes include amending law and establishing new organizations to reduce problems like unclear responsibilities because of the overlapping affairs. Briefly speaking, the major changes are replacing “National Fire Agency” (NFA) by “National Disaster Prevention and Protection Agency” (NDPPA) as a professional institution in dealing with future disasters and gives emphasize on the role of local governments, establishing “Special Reconstruction Regulation for typhoon Morakot” to supply more finical support for houses or industries reconstruction, amending “Disaster Prevention and Protection Act” to make the whole disaster managing system more consistently, combining the “Central Disaster Prevention and Response Council” and “National Disaster Prevention and Response Committee” to reduce the problem of affairs overlapping, and establishing “Office of Disaster Management” to supervise central and local governments to execute disaster prevention and response plans.