Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation

The residents of the new Great Love Village in southern Taiwan lost their homes to Typhoon Morakot last August – but survived a major earthquake last Thursday. The village passed its first major test with flying colours.

The earthquake, measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale, struck a mountainous area of Kaohsiung county on the morning of March 4. Its epicenter, in Jiaxian county, was not far from the Shanlin village, where the first 500 families moved in at the start of February. Residents, volunteers and workers ran out of their homes into open ground; but no-one was hurt and nothing was damaged. All the residents had lost their homes, and many had lost loved ones, to typhoon Morakot which struck mountainous areas of southern Taiwan on August 8 and 9 last year.

This time residents of the village felt powerful tremors from the quake but were not afraid. “I was not worried at all,” said Peng Mufa. “My heart was at ease.” Xie Yingming said that he was standing next to his wife: “the tremors were very strong.” The village was built to withstand the level of earthquakes and typhoons that hit Taiwan, so the residents knew they were safe. They were fortunate not to be living in their former mountain homes, where the building quality is not so high and the quake caused landslides. Li Taisheng, who was taking part in a work-for-relief programme, said that they evacuated quickly: “then we called our family members to tell them we were all safe. Everything was peaceful here.” Volunteer Zhuang Xiudan said that they were examining the building materials: “everyone evacuated quickly. We feared a danger from falling stones. We asked everyone how they were and the vast majority were fine.” Volunteers advised the residents to pay attention to the many after-shocks likely to follow and take care.

The new village has passed its first major test and the high-quality building materials showed their worth. The residents and their families can go to sleep with a peaceful heart.