My name is Piper Chen, living in Taoyuan, the northern part of Taiwan wich is next to Taipei.

What I've seen these days from the local Taiwanese news were extremely terrifying and heartbreaking. It tears me apart to see people crying out loud and complaining the government not to receive the international rescue resources. I can't imagine what the serious consequence will be if those people who buried underground are still alive and "still" waiting for help.

Though the government has turned down the help from the U.S. and Japan. It is still our hope to see professional rescue teams, especially searching dogs to come to Taiwan.

In deed, Taiwanese DO need help!

CNN, celebrated for its international and sophisticated perspectives in journalism, which would be a rare-find in Taiwan, is expected to present more pragmatic reports regarding disaster rescue efficiency, rescue and aid mobiled, not by governments, but by the 23M civilians on the island, politics behind refusing international rescue teams by KMT, and future prospect for the island. Presenting shelters and food aid and people sleeping on classroom floors provides no materials of real substance and degrades CNN to a weekly gossip magazine. While we applaude the reporter for enduring hardship on location, the end results appear to be insignificant blogging of an individual. This is not what Taiwan wishes the world to know about the truth behind the natural disaster that we all have been or will be confronted by global warming. Thank you.

My name Oscar Lin,I am from Republic of China too. "Republic of China" is the official name of Taiwan. anyway, is heartbreaking to hear about this. I live in Taipei, nothern Taiwan Island, is fine here, but very very terrible in southern Taiwan island, we realy need help from other country or organization, like japan, US or Red Cross. Please help us,please.

We need help!

I'm a resident in Taiwan as well and feel sad to see tragedy happening everyday. But I disagree some points of view from Chen.

The main problem of rescuing villagers is the bad weather. It's good to have foreign rescue team to help us; however, no one can help if we still have a bad weather in these disaster areas!!! (EMS Helis cannot fly under bad weather, even if USA & Japan's helicopters come to help us!!)

Also, we don't have such so-called "golden rescue time" to safe the people who buried underground, this is not the earthquake we faced in 1999...People die immediately when facing mudslide+floods!!!

It's really sad to hear many many people blame our military, police & government. We should put the top priority in rescuing people and having self-criticised later. None of government can do very well when facing disater + bad weather like we have right now.

Taiwan government's actons is too slow..., wastng too much precious time on trifles, also denied any helps from overseas' assistance. Now we demand the choppers, mass digging instruments and the related devices as well ...... pls spreading out our requests to anyone who could help ~ God blesses All !!

I am a Taichung resident and I would like to tell all the readers out there that what you see on the news is far from the realities down on the ground.

There has been a bad tendency for Taiwanese reporters to exaggerate and cause panic and confusion. It seems as though all the news stations want to report are the disasters/weeping/yelling/complaining more than the actual hardships the military rescuers etc are really facing. No news like bad news?

But it took the crash of a military rescue helicopter taking the lives of 3 servicemen aboard to give all the critics a real idea how harsh the weather really is to be flying 24/7. Give them a break.

And don't get me started on the betel nut trees planted on the mountain sides. They are the sole reason why landslides occur. People have only themselves to blame.

Please help my land, FORMOSA, TAIWAN!
Many thank you!

We Taiwanese should have more confidence on the government, the military, and those rescuers. Any bias criticism is meaningless at these moment. God bless Taiwan!

Aside from spreading out our crying out for help to the rest of the world, we would like ask you, the independent and professional media, to be the witness of our government's cruelty and inefficiency.

Dear All,

I live in Tainan & so far I really don't know how to describe my feeling to this disaster, but now all south of Taiwan are very very horrible, hundreds of people died because the government treated this issue as nothing important. All that we can do is to help by ourselves, nothing to expect from the government, therefore, I hereby beg all the countries in the world to help the citizens in south Taiwan, or that'll cause more & more people died. I love my country & my people, I really don't want them to suffer such painful & worried days. Please please help us as soon as possible, we do need your help.

Now it is the time we have to be together,to do something,not blaming . No one can say they can do it perfectly as the the bad thing happen. So help our government ,help our people. less blame more help will make things better.

Taiwan needs help.

I live in Nantou County which is in central Taiwan and where a part of which was also slashed badly by the typhoon. Parts of the mountain areas here are suffering from mudslides, and some villages are still stranded and can not be reached by rescuer lest by helicopters.

But things here are no worse than what happened in Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties in the south. There are still hundreds, even more than a thousand, missing or are feared to be buried by mudslides or washed away by flood water.

So far, it is impossible for me and many others as well to have faith in the government. It is a desperate anticipation by many people that there should be someone to lead and direct the rescue activities, and many hope that the president Ma Ying-jeou can play the role. But it is utterly disappointing that he has yet taken the responsibility and even seems to avoid doing such.

Most people here now can still not have a clear picture of what had exactly happened and how the rescues have been proceeded even the disaster has been there for almost a week. How can the people believe that the central government can do what is needed to be done at such a sluggish speed?

The president and his government is waisting time and the most serious thing is that they're leading those who are stranded to a direr situation. I hate to say, but the government is really letting us down.

Somebody please help us!

I'm from Taiwan.

" We Taiwanese should have more confidence on the government, the military, and those rescuers. Any bias criticism is meaningless at these moment." -– Chiang

I completely agree with that.
Nobody is t perfect, but I think everybody is trying the best.

Peace & Love

I lived in Kaohsioung city. I feel helplees. I can do nothing except donation. I think our government need large mechanics to clean the mudroads. The news from TV is showing the disappeared villliage in Kaohsiung county and else where in other places of southern Taiwan, day after days. Our govenrment claimed they followed the SOP(standard operation procedures) without drilled before. and it totally exposed the efficient recuse actions. We do need help from other country since there are still hundreds and thousands of out country people in some desperate zones. They are not going to make it within days. Please Do Save Taiwan.

While we watched and sadden by the harsh realities of damages Typhoon Morokat caused; the lives lost; the homes washed away. We must not forget the many many ordinary citizens who volunteered and participated in the rescuing. Those who risked their own lives and went bravely into the disaster area to help the victimized.

They have not been recognized enough--Instead of focusing on criticizing the government, let's focus a little more on reporting stories of their brave acts and actions.

These isolated villages needs help! They were so spread out of in the mountain region that it would need a massive military aerial relief effort to cover every villages. With bridges that were washed away by the 118 inches of downpour from Typhoon Morakot needs to be rebuilt. Meanwhile, it leaves villages in the mountains isolated from the outside. If the government in Taiwan don't act quick enough and realized the difficult situation they were in and call for massive military effort to move the food and water up to the villages, we may see survivors becoming victim to malnutrition.

please help taiwan , we really need foreign help ,either
official or individual , thank you very much

Though I agree that Taiwanese media (or any media) often times exaggerate and overly dramatize the stories, the fact remains. People are suffering. Yes the weather is bad and it hinders the rescue mission, but did the government mobilize all the resorces quickly and efficiently? Does the government has a plan? President Ma blamed the villagers for not evacuating to CNN reporters, that is a new low even for him. Not all the criticisms are biased, you know, there are reasons why they are coming.
Chinese philosophy says " men can always conquer nature" and that has partly contributed to the abuse of land. Blame it to people who abused the land, but isn't it goverment's responsibility to regulate and to plan for the land use?

There is no doubt an immediate act and rescure are needed. However, the weather is still so bad in many mountain areas. While blaming the aid is too slow, we should concern the safety of the rescure teams. Don't they have families as well?

No one and no government can deal with a super scale nature catastrophe. Just think about the Katrina in the U.S.

President Ma's first mistake is failure to declare a National Emergency.
Second Mistake is refusing international rescue efforts. Third mistake is shifting the blame to the victims for not evacuating.

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/08/13/kachroo.taiwan.typhoon.itn?iref=videosearch

Watch the video and witness yourself how Taiwan's president is not owning up to any mistake in this disaster (the slow reaction and slow acceptance of international helps while the shortage of helicopters and professional rescue teams is costing more and more lives each day) and instead is unthinkably blaming victims. See how the president keeps skirting responsibilities by using "they" in all his responses.

We are all helpless in this massive devastation. Stop the blaming and start do something about it. If you are like me, who have a day job to do and family to feed and can't be one of the people to go and help out, then let's pray.

Pray to god to give wisdom to the government, so they are capable of plan and execute rescue and rebuilt efforts.
- to protect the rescue team, so the won't be in harms way.
- to give the stranded villagers the courage to stay alive.
- to give the survivors hopes and strength to face the future
- to provide emotional guidance to the survivors
- to watch over the people of this country,
- to give us time to heal and focusing on taking care of our land.