Study on the Disaster Relief and Emergency Evacuation Countermeasures of Disadvantaged Minority in Major Disasters in Taiwan

Major disaster prevention and protection is a major issue to the governments. Those issues include how to improve the efficiency of the emergency responses, the more inputs of manpower and material resources such as the establishment of related Acts and the system of emergency responses, emergency warning and evacuation order activation system, the enhancement of field emergency operations. Major disasters not only include the earthquake-related disaster, but also the global warming induced typhoons and accompanied flooding. In August, 2009, typhoon Morakot left more than 700 deaths and injuries in Taiwan. The total agricultural losses reached NTD 16.4 billion, and numerous infrastructures were also destroyed. A few counties and cities are still recovering from that event. The lack of knowledge attributed from the studies referring to the recognition of risk, needs, and behavioral pattern of evacuees make the decisions made by authorities sometimes turn aside from the reality. The definition of ‘disadvantaged minority’ adopted in this study is ‘disaster disadvantaged minority’ or ‘fragile minority due to disaster’, which is different from the traditional definition. In the words, in addition to the traditional disadvantaged minority (such as disabled, children), the population affected by the disasters temporally and spatially are also added to the definition of ‘disaster disadvantaged minority.’ Those new group are lineated by the locations of their habitation and the relative disadvantaged to disaster-prevention information to meet the accurate definition of policy of evacuation focused on disadvantaged minority. In a result, to cope with the future needs of mass evacuation due to disadvantaged minority, the data, behavioral pattern, and Acts of Taiwan and foreign countries are collected and analyzed for their advantages and disadvantages. The applicable procedures are then suggested for the reference for the advancement of disaster-prevention and emergency responses