14. Minorities and Disaster Research: Restoration and Resilience after Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan.

On August 7th, 2009, the typhoon named Morakot hit Taiwan. The extreme amount of rain triggered enormous mudslides and severe flooding throughout the southern part and one of the mudslides buried the entire town of Xiaolin, a village built by indigenous peoples, killing an estimated over 400 people in the village alone. Most of the victims are minorities. What happened in Xiaolin is more than a natural disaster. Similar to the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave, it is also a social drama that makes a series of conditions to stand out that are always present but hardly to perceive by the society. The purpose of this roundtable discussion thus moves beyond the consequences of natural disasters. The context of provides an opportunity to uncover hidden social problems. One of the most salient problems is that the minority groups are particularly vulnerable to natural and human disasters due to limited access to resources and information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]