Business
Typhoon Morakot: Taiwan Sends 4000 On Rescue Mission
The military deployed more 4000 troops yesterday to rescue and deliver supplies to survivors from remote Taiwanese villages devastated by last weekend’s typhoon, but many criticized the government’s response as insufficient and too slow.
Villagers told officials who visited the worst-hit areas this week that more of their relatives could have been saved if they had moved sooner and faster.
The government said its operations have been hampered because many areas of the country were cut off when roads and bridges collapsed, though Interior Minister Liao Liao-yi said troops on foot had reached several villages Wednesday.
Until then, rescuers had relied solely on helicopters to reach the worst-hit areas, and on Thursday authorities requested larger choppers from foreign governments capable of carrying earth-moving equipment and shelters.
Some 14,000 villagers have been rescued — including 600 on Thursday — since Typhoon Morakot dumped more than 80 inches (2 meters) of rain past weekend, the island’s disaster relief center said. The storm unleashed the worst floods the island has seen in 50 years.
Another 2,000 villagers — who escaped those floods and were sheltering either in open fields or on higher ground — were still waiting to be ferried to shelters, it said. Several hundred more — no one is sure how many — remain unaccounted for and are feared lost in the mudslides.
The official death toll in Taiwan stands at 108, with 61 listed as missing. The storm also killed 22 people in the Philippines and eight in China.
The military sent 4,000 new troops on Thursday to join another 16,000 soldiers already working to save thousands of survivors stranded in several villages in the island’s south, the Defense Ministry said.
Relief officials on Thursday asked foreign governments to provide giant choppers that could carry cranes, prefabricated houses and sterilizers. Lawmakers said only the U.S. and Russia made those helicopters.
Taiwan has already received offers of financial assistance from the United States, Japan, Singapore and China.
In the southern Taiwan township of Toayuan, 500 villagers were told to run to higher ground about 30 minutes before a lake created by floodwaters and landslides burst its banks, an official said, adding that two nearby lakes were expected to burst soon.
“There would be a massive amount of water flowing down the Laonung River, and we have alerted villagers around to flee,” relief official Hsu Chin-biao said.
In the southern town of Liukuei, scores of private relief vehicles were held up along a narrow, muddy mountain road, waiting for permission to move toward the center of the heavy flooding that devastated a series of isolated villages.
Relief efforts by a number of Buddhist organizations complement the military’s work to pluck hundreds of villagers from the affected area.
But villagers complained to President Ma Ying-jeou and other leaders that the rescue operation was too slow.
“Why does the government say only useless things?” a woman anxious to learn the fate of relatives trapped in Kaochung village in the south asked. With tears filling her eyes, she told TV reporters: “I’ve been waiting for several days, yet there has not been anyone going to rescue my family.”
The mass circulation Apple Daily said Ma “failed to order the military to commit itself to relief efforts right away, and that made him an incompetent commander in chief.”
News reports said many villagers used their bare hands in the days after the mudslides to try to dig down to their buried homes in futile efforts to save their relatives.
Others sought to send messages for help.
On Wednesday, a wooden sign was seen being erected near a collapsed bridge in Hsinfa village in Kaohsiung saying “32 Buried SOS.” Rescuers rushed to the scene and tossed ropes over the river to pull several survivors to safety, according to news reports.
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) has criticised Nigeria’s import ban on 25 categories of goods, claiming that the restrictions limit market access for American exporters.
This is the effect of President Donald Trump’s tariffs introduction on goods entering the United States, with Nigeria facing a 14 per cent duty.
The USTR highlighted the impact of Nigeria’s import ban on various sectors, particularly agriculture, pharmaceuticals, beverages, and consumer goods.
The restrictions affect items such as beef, pork, poultry, fruit juices, medicaments, and alcoholic beverages, which the United States sees as significant barriers to trade.
The agency argues that these limitations reduce export opportunities for United States businesses and lead to lost revenue.
“Nigeria’s import ban on 25 different product categories impacts United States exporters, particularly in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, beverages, and consumer goods.
“Restrictions on items like beef, pork, poultry, fruit juices, medicaments, and spirits limit United States market access and reduce export opportunities.
“These policies create significant trade barriers that lead to lost revenue for United States businesses looking to expand in the Nigerian market”, the agency said .
In 2016, Nigeria implemented the ban on these 25 items as part of efforts to control imports and stimulate local production.
Some of the banned items include poultry, pork, refined vegetable oil, sugar, cocoa products, spaghetti, beer, and certain medicines.
On March 26, 2025, the Federal Government also announced plans to halt solar panel imports to encourage local manufacturing as part of its push for clean energy.
A leading agribusiness strategist and digital agriculture expert, Ayo Oluwa Okediji, has sought cooperative-driven investments in sustaining growth of poultry industry in Nigeria.
He said the poultry industry was at a defining moment and requires urgent structural reforms to secure its future and ensure long-term sustainability.
Speaking on the theme, “Strengthening Poultry Farming Through Cooperative Synergy and Strategic Investments”, at the recently concluded Oyo Mega Poultry Workshop 2025 in Ibadan, Okediji called on poultry farmers, cooperative leaders, financial institutions and policy makers to rethink the existing structure of the poultry sector.
He stressed the need to transition from fragmented, individually-driven operations to well-structured, cooperative-led enterprises capable of attracting sustainable financing and securing long-term viability.
He said, “Our poultry sector cannot thrive on individual effort alone. We need to organise ourselves into cooperative clusters, build strong governance systems and position ourselves to attract the level of investment needed to sustain this industry beyond this generation.”
Drawing on lessons from successful global cooperative models such as Rabobank in the Netherlands and Landus Cooperative in the United States, Okediji introduced the FarmClusters Poultry Model, a locally adapted solution developed by Agribusiness Dynamics Technology Limited (AgDyna), a subsidiary of AgroInfoTech Africa.
According to him, the model is currently being piloted in Oyo State in partnership with PANOY Agribusiness Limited and local poultry cooperatives.
The Rivers State Representative of the Nigeria Chambers of Commerce, Mines, Industries and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Mr. Erasmus Chukwundah, has urged palm oil farmers to consider hybrid seedlings for planting, if they must break even in palm oil business.
Chukwundah said this recently at the Free Oil Palm Business Climate Smart Best Management Practice/Assistance Training organized by Partnership Initiative In Niger Delta (PIND) for Palm Oil Farmers in Elele, Ikwerre Local Government Area.
The Rivers representative said until palm oil farmers begin to consider such hybrid oil palm seedlings, they may not meet up with the daily increasing demand of palm oil in the market.
According to him, the seedlings produce up to 30 bunches at once that ripen same time.
He said PIND decided to partner with Oil Palm Growers Association of Nigeria (OPGAN) to ensure that the message was received by the targeted audience.
According to him, palm oil remained a popular choice of industry operators as it could be converted to many other products such as vegetable cooking oil.
He also noted that products such as motor tyers, marine ropes and others are now gotten from the palm tree.
Chukwundah, who is the immediate past Director-General of Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce, Mines, Industries, and Agriculture (PHCCIMA), further warned against use of unrecommended fertilisers in growing oil palms.
He noted that such practices could limit its export value or chances as the foreign marketers have a way of detecting such .
He reiterated the need for organic fertilizers, including poultry droppings, to enable them have a natural palm oil.
“People must reduce physical contact with palm oil production. That is why we are campaigning for hydrolic oil mills. The foreign markets are no longer interested in crude method of palm oil production”, he said.
Meanwhile, one of the farmers, Sonny Didia, who appreciated Chukwundah’s commitment towards the concern of farmers, appealed for an urgent need for loan opportunity with low interest rate in order to enable them beat the target.
King Onunwor