Taiwan Cabinet officials quit over typhoon as polls plummet+

SHIAOLIN VILLAGE, Taiwan, Aug. 19 Kyodo -
Taiwan's defense minister and a top Cabinet official tendered their
resignations Wednesday over the government's handling of Typhoon Morakot,
Premier Liu Chao-shiuan said.

Liu said Defense Minister Chen Chao-min and Cabinet secretary general Hsueh
Hsiang-chuan offered to step down, but the Cabinet has yet to approve their
resignations.
''At this time, I've asked Minister Chen and Secretary General Hsueh to stay on
and commit themselves to relief work,'' Liu told a press conference in Taipei.
''Decisions on possibly restructuring the Cabinet would emerge before the
beginning of September,'' he said, adding he would be among the officials who
could be replaced.
For now, the resignations of Chen and Hsueh make them the latest political
casualties amid mounting public criticism of the government's response to one
of the worst weather-related disasters in Taiwan's history.
Tuesday, Vice Foreign Minister Andrew Hsia also tendered his resignation, which
Liu said he would approve.
President Ma Ying-jeou said Hsia last week signed off on a secret telegram
instructing Taiwan's missions abroad to turn down all foreign material
assistance, even as the extent of destruction indicated an acute need for such
aid.
Ma claimed to be unaware of the telegram.
But since the telegram was retracted, foreign aid has flowed into Taiwan, with
the U.S. military conducting its largest-scale operations on the island since
1979, when Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.
Since Tuesday, four U.S. heavy-lift military helicopters have airlifted
excavating equipment into areas cut off by typhoon-triggered landslides.
The U.S. Navy has dispatched a humanitarian vessel to Taiwan's west coast, and
two U.S. C-130 transport planes brought relief supplies on Sunday and Monday.
Later Wednesday, the Interchange Association in Taipei said Japan will send a
disaster relief team and supplies to Taiwan to assist in the wake of Morakot.
The association is Japan's de facto embassy in the absence of official
bilateral relations.
The Japan International Cooperation Agency, it said, plans to dispatch a
five-person team to help Taiwan handle hygiene and disaster-prevention
operations in Taiwan's south.
The agency team will arrive Friday, the association said.
The agency will also send supplies, including 50 water filtering machines and
30 electric generators, it said.
Morakot lashed Taiwan on Aug. 8-9, dumping record amounts of rain on the south
and causing torrential floods and mudslides.
Officially, the death toll is 136, but Ma has said it is likely to top 500 as
hundreds more people remain missing and are presumed dead.
Damage to property and crops is estimated at $1.5 billion, he said.
Under fire, Ma has accepted blame for what he said was a ''slow and
disorderly'' response to the storm.
Local media that are normally friendly to Ma have heaped scorn on his
administration for failing to mobilize the military quickly enough and to
accept foreign aid.
According to the mainstream United Daily News, Ma's public approval rating has
dropped to its lowest point, 29 percent, since taking office last year because
of the storm.
Local cable news station TVBS said 64 percent of the public disapprove of his
administration's handling of Morakot.
''President Ma values politics over human life!'' said one villager from
Shiaolin village in the rural south.
On Aug. 8, a massive landslide buried the entire village except for two houses,
killing an estimated 400 residents.
Authorities said the residents, most of them still missing, were buried or torn
apart by the mudslide.
As U.S. helicopters buzzed overhead, Ma visited Shiaolin to pay respects to the
dead, comfort survivors, and survey the mud flat that now covers what was once
a thriving mountain town of nearly 200 households.
Troops scoured the area in search of corpses -- a task that, until Monday,
involved platoons crawling on the ground and seeking out buried, decomposing
bodies.
Authorities later mobilized rescue dogs and scanning equipment to spare troops
from the ''psychological stress'' of crawling and smelling for the dead in mud,
according to a release from Taiwan's disaster relief center Wednesday.
For his part, Ma vowed to ''rebuild the village'' and investigate allegations
that nearby construction projects involving dynamiting played a key role in the
landslide.
==Kyodo