Cabinet passes draft amendments related to Hualien barrier lake

Taipei, Aug. 6 (CNA) The Cabinet on Thursday passed draft amendments to a law that would add tsunamis and barrier lake breaches to the list of legally defined natural disasters and designate the central government agencies responsible for handling them.

The proposed amendments to the Disaster Prevention and Protection Act came after questions emerged over the division of responsibilities between central and local governments in dealing with the Matai'an River barrier lake, which overflowed in Hualien County last year, killing 19.

Taiwan's current legally defined natural disasters include typhoons, floods, earthquakes (including soil liquefaction), droughts, large-scale landslides, and volcanic eruptions. The amended law would add tsunamis and barrier lake disasters to the list and designate the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) and Ministry of Agriculture as the central authorities overseeing responses to the respective disasters.

The Executive Yuan currently has the Central Disaster Prevention and Response Council and the Office of Disaster Management. Under the existing system, disaster response efforts are handled according to the type of disaster.

The draft amendments would instead assign designated agencies to oversee major disaster prevention and response tasks, helping speed up key decisions. Prevention and reconstruction efforts would remain the responsibility of relevant authorities.

At a Cabinet news conference, Deputy Interior Minister Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said the government would later amend the Executive Yuan Organization Act and related regulations to clarify the role and composition of the designated response agencies.

He said future arrangements for prevention and recovery efforts would be designed to balance the different areas of expertise involved.

The draft amendments would also require government agencies to appoint disaster prevention chiefs responsible for promoting and overseeing disaster prevention and response efforts. They would also require local governments and public utilities to assign dedicated personnel to carry out related tasks and establish disaster coordination centers to support evacuation, shelter operations and relief supply distribution.

In a separate statement, Interior Minister Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said the proposed amendments were based on lessons learned from disasters including Typhoon Danas and Typhoon Ragasa last year, as well as the Matai'an River barrier lake incident in Hualien.

Liu said the changes aim to address longstanding problems caused by disaster prevention and response duties being scattered among different government agencies and plans, by establishing a system focused on professional expertise, clear responsibility and dedicated disaster prevention efforts.