Taiwan’s Cabinet approved a NT$100 billion ($3 billion) reconstruction budget Thursday after the island’s worst typhoon in more than 50 years killed 500 people and wiped out roads and bridges in the mountainous south.
Typhoon Morakot hit nearly two weeks ago and caused more than $2 billion in property damage. It triggered landslides and flooding that trapped thousands in remote mountain villages for days.
The three-year reconstruction budget is yet to be approved by the legislature, but is expected to pass smoothly since the ruling Nationalist Party controls more than 70 percent of the seats.
“We will help victims relocate to safe areas,” Vice Minister of the Interior Lin Join-sane told reporters. “It is also important to rebuild public infrastructure, and we will loosen regulations to accelerate the reconstruction of bridges and roads.”
President Ma Ying-jeou’s administration has come under fire for its slow response to the disaster.
Recent polls have reflected growing public anger.
A telephone poll published Wednesday by TVBS news stations put Ma’s approval rating at 16 percent, down from 41 percent two months ago.
The poll surveyed 977 Taiwanese adults on Monday and Tuesday and had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
Another telephone poll published Thursday by the usually pro-Ma China Times newspaper showed 47 percent of Taiwanese want a major Cabinet reshuffle.
The poll surveyed 817 Taiwanese adults on Wednesday and had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
Four Cabinet members offered to resign earlier this week to take the blame for the government’s typhoon response.
While Ma has said Vice Foreign Minister Andrew Hsia’s resignation would be approved, Premier Liu Chao Shiuan has said he will only consider the resignations of Defense Minister Chen Chao-min and Cabinet Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan in a Cabinet reshuffle in early September.
The resignation of the chief of the Water Resources Agency, Chen Shen-hsien, is yet to be approved.
