Taiwan searches for answers after devastating flood kills 19

On Tuesday, Sept. 23, Guangfu Township in Hualien County, eastern Taiwan, was struck by disastrous floods that killed 19 people, left dozens missing, and destroyed large swaths of the town.

The crisis was more than a year in the making. The deadly 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck Hualien in April 2024 loosened rocks and earth in the mountains around the Matai’an Creek, “Business Weekly” reported.

The impact of Tropical Storm Wipha in late July this year caused a landslide in the upper reaches of the creek, resulting in the formation of a huge landslide dam and a barrier lake behind it with an estimated capacity of 91 million cubic meters of water.

Heavy rainfall brought by Super Typhoon Ragasa proved the final straw. At around 2:50 p.m. on September 23, the lake overflowed and the dam broke, sending a destructive mass of water rushing down the mountains into Guangfu Township.

The torrent of black water, likened to an inland tsunami, reportedly reached heights of 180 cm. TCN saw the muddy trail of destruction in Guangfu the day after the flood.


Illuminated by white floodlights from the machinery and the shock of neon rainbow from betel nut shop signs, construction workers with blackened, tired faces operated diggers and bulldozers through the night in shifts.

Directly in front of Guangfu train station, Zhongzheng Rd, the township's main street, unfolded into a chaotic scene of destroyed property, homes, and lives. The ground was covered in layers of thick gray-black sludge.

The thick, sticky mud that swallowed sandals, along with the piles of debris and moving heavy machines, made it dangerous to move around Guangfu’s disaster zone.

Some of the mangled cars were stacked on top of each other, others were thrown through shop and house windows. They were tossed there by the powerful floodwaters the previous day, a construction worker at the scene told TCN.


Trudging north up Zhonghua Rd. in the direction of Matai’an Creek and the levee that burst the previous day, the lukewarm stream water was just under knee height. Turning northwest up Linsen Road, TCN bumped into Ah Jheng, a Guangfu local, who planned to begin repairing his flood-damaged home the next day.

“I’m not pleased with the government because they told us that this area wasn’t at risk from the flood,” Ah Jheng said.

He pointed the beam of his flashlight at a concrete building with mud, furniture, and trees piled against the outside wall.

“That’s my front door,” he said.


Build up

Taiwan's Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) noticed that a barrier lake had formed upstream in the Matai’an Creek in late July 2025. Experts from some of Taiwan’s universities met to assess the dangers.

Risks of secondary landslides removed the option of blasting the dam, “The Reporter” wrote.

Heavy rainfall over the summer was compounded by showers from powerful typhoon Ragasa in late September. Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration recorded a peak 24‑hour rainfall in Hualien of 179 mm.


On Sept. 21, Taiwan's Ministry of the Interior’s Department of Civil Affairs said it had told local governments via the Line messaging app at 6 p.m. on Sept. 19 and again at 8 a.m. on Sept. 20 to prepare for the typhoon and the risk of overspill of the Matai’an landslide dam. The department stated that it had instructed the Hualien County government to collaborate with the township offices of Guangfu, Wanrong, and Fenglin, which were identified as being at risk, and to inform residents about evacuation and emergency response measures.

The Ministry of the Interior initially assessed that 275 people living in areas at high risk from flooding should be evacuated. As of 9 a.m. Sept. 21, no one had been evacuated from the danger zones, the MOI added.

The MOI later said that as of 1 p.m. Sept. 21, nobody had been evacuated from the danger area.

In the third Work Meeting and Intelligence Assessment Conference of the Central Disaster Emergency Operation Center for Typhoon Ragasa, the MOI said that as of 5 p.m. on Sept. 21, no evacuations had taken place.

Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction predicted that accumulated rainfall could lead the Matai’an Creek dam to overflow by the afternoon of Sept. 23.

The number of people identified as being at risk from the overflow grew to 8,524 by Sept. 23. Of them, 5,239 people were advised to adopt “vertical evacuation,” meaning they should move up to the second floor of their residence if their house had a second floor.


Crash

At around 2:50 p.m. on Sept. 23, the landslide dam overspilled, unleashing a torrent that, around 20 minutes later, reached and snapped the 904-m-long steel and concrete bridge into pieces. Video footage shows sections of the bridge being hurled into the air.

Then the water broke through the southern embankment of Matai’an Creek and rushed southward into Guangfu Township.

Surviving

TCN spoke with some survivors sheltered at Dajin Elementary School, which the government converted into a temporary refuge. The floodwaters smashed homes into “trash heaps,” as one villager put it.

“I was eating lunch when the water came rushing in,” said Mr. Wang (王) as he sat outside the Dajin shelter. Wang lives in Da’an Village at the south end of Guangfu, one of the areas severely affected by the flooding.

“There was no time to get out of the village,” he said.

“A police car rushed by broadcasting something, but I couldn’t hear what it was saying,” he added. “It happened too fast.”

“Before I ran to the second floor, I helped an elderly woman by pushing her onto her roof,” he said. Pointing to crusted blood at the corners of his mouth, he explained: “I bit my tongue when I pushed her onto the roof.”

“The woman’s son came to find and thank me for saving his mom’s life, but I told him don’t worry about it—it was nothing,” he continued. “That’s how I injured my foot, too,” he said, pointing to his left foot, which was wrapped in thick gauze.

“Taiwanese people and foreigners have all come together to help out. We’re really grateful for this,” said Mr. Wang.

Sitting next to Mr. Wang was Mr. Pan (潘), whose house in Pingan Village was also struck by the flood.

“I think the two‑party system is a mess,” said Pan, referring to Taiwan’s two major political parties, the DPP and the KMT. “They’re blaming each other when they should be helping each other,” he added.

The Guangfu flood has thrown Taiwan’s bitter political divisions into sharp relief. The disaster was followed by a wave of finger-pointing between the Hualien County government (controlled by the KMT) and Taiwan’s central government (led by the DPP), each accusing the other of mismanagement and poor planning.


Accusations and delayed alerts

On October 2, KMT Taoyuan Councilor Ling Tao (凌濤) accused the central government of delaying a mandatory red alert evacuation for the Matai’an landslide dam by 13 hours. He said the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency (FANCA) had predicted possible dam overflow during a Sept. 21 meeting and, under its own protocols, should have triggered a red alert by 4 p.m. that day.

However, the Ministry of the Interior did not issue the red alert until 7 a.m. on Sept. 22, he said. Ling noted that while the MOI had informed local authorities of an increased evacuation count around 9 p.m. on Sept. 21, it still failed to issue the official alert during what he called a critical “golden 13‑hour rescue window.”

However, the MOI Minister Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) refuted Ling’s claims, saying that Hualien County officials were given the information they needed to act during the Central Disaster Response Center meeting.


Blame game

Data from Taiwanese sentiment analysis firm TPOC (Taiwan Public Opinion Research Center) showed that nearly 60% of online discussions about the disaster blamed the local government, while around 41% held the central government and its agencies responsible for inadequate flood control and crisis management.

Some people criticized the use of the word “overflow” to describe the breach of the Matai’an landslide dam.


KMT Legislator Hsiao Wei‑ling (翁曉玲) accused the central government of downplaying the severity of the Matai’an Creek disaster by referring to it as an “overflow” rather than a “breach.” She pointed to aerial imagery showing a 75% reduction in the lake’s volume as evidence of a major structural failure. Hsiao also claimed that the Ministry of Agriculture pressured media outlets to avoid using the word “breach” to cover up potential negligence.

“Man‑made disaster”

Mr. Chang (張), who owns a bakery on Guangfu’s Zhongshan Rd, said he was at home when the water rushed into town. He said that no one warned him there was danger, and that he was not warned.

“This is a man‑made disaster,” he said. “Everyone has known about the danger of the landslide for months. The lake shouldn’t have been left to accumulate water for so long without anyone doing anything about it.”

He said he was not satisfied with the government’s response. “No one has come to help us. It’s just us,” he added. “The army hasn’t come to help this area.”

Chang said he needed people to help pry open his shop door, which was damaged during the flood.


“I'm working on my own here because my mum had a stroke and can’t walk,” he added.

Besides the carnage caused by the flood, the streets of Guangfu were transformed by the response to it: emergency personnel and troops from across Taiwan converged to assist. The Hualien Sugar Factory—one of Guangfu’s main attractions—was repurposed by the central government into a “forward command post” to coordinate relief.

TCN spoke with Commander Dai of the Taipei City Fire Department at his makeshift command beside the sugar factory. Sitting next to a converted World War II bomb crater turned into a fish pond, Dai said his team was in Hualien to help.

“The work is still dangerous,” he said. “There’s a risk of further overflow and flooding from the landslide lake,” he added.

Taiwan’s National Fire Agency reported that as of 7 a.m. on Sept. 25, there were 14 people unaccounted for.

At 8 a.m. that same morning, Hualien’s FANCA branch shared aerial LiDAR data showing that 11 million tons of water remained in the landslide dam lake, about 12% of its capacity.


Suspicions about relief donation management

A hospitality worker in Hualien City told TCN anonymously that their organization wanted to donate supplies to Guangfu, but refused to send them through the Hualien County government over concerns that funds and resources might be mismanaged.

These concerns were echoed in media reports. Taiwan's "Liberty Times" reported that the county-level Disaster Relief Foundation of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) would no longer transfer relief funds to the Hualien County government; instead, funds will be directly distributed to verified disaster victims.

Hello, anybody home?

Hualien County Magistrate Hsu Chen-wei (徐榛蔚)—the highest elected local official—also faced criticism for being in S. Korea on a government trip in the days leading up to the flood.

"Shovel heroes"

The disaster inspired tens of thousands of volunteers to head to Guangfu to help clear the mud from homes and assist in rebuilding. Between Sept. 27 and Sept. 29, an estimated 60,000 people traveled to Guangfu to lend a hand.

The streams of volunteers wearing rubber boots, hard hats, and wielding shovels have been nicknamed “shovel heroes.”


Risks remain

The environment in Guangfu Township remains dangerous. FTV News reported that Lin Hung-sen (林鴻森), an excavator operator, died of sepsis following a leg injury sustained while clearing debris in Guangfu.

Faced with the scene of turmoil that the Guangfu flood left behind—and the possibility of coming into contact with human remains—volunteers have been warned about the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder and the effects of vicarious trauma.

Situated on the earthquake-prone Pacific Ring of Fire, Taiwan is no stranger to natural disasters. The nation’s people have repeatedly shown resilience and an ability to organize, rebuild, and support one another in the wake of destruction.

Conversations with victims of the flood show that the question of how much of this disaster was truly “natural” and how much was “man-made” remains unresolved. Taiwan’s Control Yuan, the government body responsible for investigating official misconduct, has opened investigations into the disaster response, including the deaths of 14 individuals who were located in designated mandatory evacuation zones.