Sound familiar?

Dolores1

DR1
May 3, 2000
8,215
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www.
An editorial in Taiwan News says it has many lessons to learn from the Haiti earthquake.

One could almost replace Taiwan for DR and it would read the same:

"However, all too many public offices, schools and private office and residential buildings and public places generally lack clearly demarked or well prepared evacuation or emergency shelters and the degree of incorporation of earthquake resistant technology in building construction remains relatively low due to the laxity of official regulation and enforcement as well as the "cost-down above all" mentality of Taiwan businesses.

Moreover, there remain all too many gasoline, natural gas or chemical storage sites or production facilities located in or close to highly populated areas that pose a grave and constant danger to residents and would undoubtedly complicate the provision of emergency rescue services or evacuation.

Perhaps most worrying is the somnolence of disaster prevention and response command systems at all levels of government, as demonstrated by the sluggish reaction to the massive floods that hit southern Taiwan in the wake of the torrential rains left by Typhoon Morakot.

Moreover, the number, quality and equipment of such reaction teams remains inadequate and their deployment seems to lack both strategic thinking or effective and real-time linkages with local city and county command or preparedness systems.

In addition, there are few signs that our disaster response teams or command systems are equipped with sufficient equipment, training or comprehensive priority planning or regular exercises on the restoration of key political, economic, military, high technology, communications, transportation, power or water facilities.

Taiwan urgently needs to develop an integrated, well-financed and trained disaster prevention and response system guided by the strategic concepts of "comprehensive security" encompassing natural disasters such as typhoons, floods, earthquakes, droughts, land and mud slides and manmade threats from explosion or poison chemical leakages, nuclear plant accidents, air disasters or war.

In addition, the government should develop clear systems for the mobilization of reserve military forces and provide subsidies and manpower training for civilian emergency shelter, evacuation and relocation and prepare detailed plans, organization and training programs that involve ordinary citizens in substantial ways and are not merely exercises in public relations.

Therefore, Taiwan urgently requires the grounding of disaster prevention and response authority and organization in legally mandated procedures to ensure that smooth and rapid reaction with ample legal authority in order to reduce casualties and damage to the lowest possible degree and facilitate rapid reconstruction. "

What Haiti earthquake can teach Taiwan - Taiwan News Online
 

Hillbilly

Moderator
Jan 1, 2002
18,948
514
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Excuse me, but isn't Taiwan (Taipei) the home of the World's Second Tallest Building???

Hummmm....

However, basic point of exchanging DR for Taiwan brings things home with a drum!!

HB
 

suarezn

Gold
Feb 3, 2002
5,823
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I light of this massive earthquake in Haiti and the fact that is not if but when The DR will get a big one too you'd think the government would make at least a small effort to try and put together some kind of contingency plan for such situation.

Just the article mentions if anything close to what happened in Haiti happened in a highly populated area such as Santo Domingo or Santiago I see the rate of casualties being just as high as in Haiti, because we don't have any concrete plans or at least the public is not informed.

For instance if an earthquake destroyed half of Santo Domingo does anyone know where to go for health, food assistance? Which buildings / areas are designated shelters? What organization is supposed to coordinate the relief effort? Most people are not aware of any of this. I suspect it would be complete chaos...I just hope we don't have to experience anything like this, but truth is we've been lucky for a long time and not sure how long that luck will last...

Oh and BTW tried to visit the Defensa Civil's website and Google chrome tells me "This Site may Harm your computer"...malware detected...