[Radix] Were 700 saved from the typhoon?

[Ilan Kelman]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8196543.stm

"About 700 people missing in southern Taiwan after Typhoon Morakot have been found alive, army officials say.  People from several villages are said to have made it to higher ground before mud and rock engulfed their homes.  Among the survivors found by rescue teams are 200 from Hsiaolin village, reports the Taiwan Central News Agency. [...] The BBC's Cindy Sui at Chishan in rural southern Taiwan, the centre of the rescue effort, says the authorities fear that hundreds more people could still be trapped.  In Hsiaolin alone, rescue workers said about 100 were unaccounted for as of Tuesday and thought possibly to have been buried alive."

It could be a useful investigation--for research, policy, and practice--to examine exactly what happened here.  Were the 700 "missing" people directly threatened by the typhoon-induced slides or were they outside the buried zone?  What warning(s) did they receive?  If they evacuated or escaped, when, why and how?  Were there previous instances of similar events in the area?  How many of the missing and dead were locals and how many were not?  Were there plans--or were the information available, actions, and reactions fortuitous, e.g. being awake rather than asleep?  Would there be any way to determine what was different about the survivors compared to those who died, not just in demographic characteristics, but including in information received, their actions, and their reactions to that information?

For the latter, could a method used after a 1976 flood in Colorado, USA http://www.ilankelman.org/disasterdeaths/gruntfest1977.pdf be updated and replicated?  There might also be useful contrasts and comparisons with the 1999 Venezuela rainfall-induced mudslides, the 1985 Nevado del Ruiz lahars, and the post-Pinatubo (1991) rainfall-triggered mudslides/lahars in the Philippines that continued for over a decade after the volcanic eruption.

Any takers?

Ilan
http://www.ilankelman.org

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