Typhoon Morakot
Typhoon Morakot struck Taiwan in August, 2009. The accumulated rainfall reached a record-breaking 2500 mm in just three days. The staggering rainfall resulted in huge damages and casualties. The range and size of resulted disasters indeed exceeded the catastrophic disaster from the Chi-Chi earthquake in 1999. The disasters in this typhoon event covered wide regions in Taiwan island, including Taitung, Pingtung, Kaohsiung, Tainan, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua, Taichung, Nantou, Miaoli, Hsinchu, and Taoyuan. The types of disasters included flooding, debris flow, landslide, levee breach, bridge/road damage, and agriculture losses.
DPWE was assigned a special duty by the NCDR (National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction) to briefly survey the damages of reservoirs and levees caused in Typhoon Morakot. This investigation aimed to look into the major reservoir related damages in the typhoon event. The tasks also included the preliminary analyses of the occurred problems, their causes, remedial strategy recommendations, and the impacts associated with water resources/supplies in the future. The investigated reservoirs and diversion weirs included Tsengwen reservoir, Nanhua reservoir, Mudan reservoir, Jiasian wier, and Kaoping weir.