Taking an archive news film about the August 7 flood as the starting point of discussions |
The Taichung Earthquake of 1935, the August 7 floods of 1959, 1999’s Chi-chi Earthquake and the 2009 August 8 typhoon disaster are probably the natural disasters that have hit Taiwan in the last 100 years that have caused the most deaths and injuries and are etched deepest in the collective memory of the people. As the first anniversary of last’s year’s August 8 flood disaster approached, I visited the Digital Archives in the hope of finding out how people survived through this and other trying times. Taiwan was hit by Typhoon Alan on August 7, 1959. Battered by strong winds and heavy rains for three days and nights, 13 cities and counties were flooded and 180,000 people were made homeless, with over 1000 dead or missing. The floods slashed 10% off the national GDP for that year. The Central News Agency’s commemorative webpage (http://km.cca.gov.tw/myphoto/show.asp?categoryid=36) carries a complete record of the floods and background information, however, “Disasters make the country stronger,” an news old news film in the Digital Archives that commemorates the August 7 floods and the recovery work and was made by Taiwan Provincial Film Co. grabbed my attention.
Taiwan Provincial Film Co(Aug. 5, 1959-Sept 2, 1959)。“Disasters make the country stronger,”。《Digital Archives Union Catalog》http://catalog.digitalarchives.tw/?URN=3808065(Visited on Aug 6, 2010) After last year’s disaster the ROC government was criticized for not accepting the offer of helicopters from the US and Japan to help in the relief effort. The Minister of Defense said at one point that the distance across the ocean was too great for helicopters to fly. However, in this film we can see that a US Navy LPH Amphibious Assault Helicopter Carrier,the USS Thetis,LPH-6, took part in relief efforts and transported goods. The films shows the ship’s cooks “All doing overtime baking bread for the disaster victims, packing it in boxes, carrying them up from the kitchen to the deck and loading them onto helicopters” from where they were flown to an airport in Taiwan and then transported to the disaster hit areas.
Text and films are provided by TELDAP e-Newsletter (December, 2010)
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