KAOHSIUNG: Medical workers are finally able to provide help to residents of flood- and landslide-ravaged villages in the remote mountainous areas of southern Taiwan. The medical team brings relief and badly needed emergency medical services.

Medical staff made their first breakthrough into the storm-ravaged region late Tuesday. Additional teams arrived yesterday. A team from Kaohsiung's Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and I-Shou University Hospital were airlifted to Kaohsiung county's Namasia village, and immediately set about manning an emergency health care station in the village's Presbyterian Church.

Most of what the medical staff are offering is first aid. Some local residents, pulled from wrecked homes and rivers of mud, were given emergency medical treatment before being airlifted to hospitals.

An I-Shou spokesman said the hospital has also sent physicians and surgeons to the Department of Health-run Cishan Hospital in nearby Cishan township, where they are caring for newly rescued villagers.

A number of mountainous villages in Kaohsiung county, including Hsiaolin, Taoyuan, Maolin, Namahsia, Jiasian and part of Liouguei were cut off from the outside world after typhoon Morakot delivered staggering amounts of rainfall to southern Taiwan August 7-9.

In the best of times, most of those towns are accessible only by single mountain roads that often cross or run parallel to rivers. In the aftermath of Morakot, roads and bridges have been reduced to shattered debris.

Chang Gung Hospital said a team of its medical staff was airlifted to Jiasian from Cishan Junior High School in neighboring Cishan township yesterday morning to set up an emergency medical station to serve rescued villagers. Hundreds of residents have been trapped in Jiasian since August 7.

Meanwhile, a villager from Namasia village urged health authorities to step up disinfection operations. He described the odor permeating his hometown as terrible.

"I am afraid that if we delay disinfection efforts, epidemics may break out, a situation that would aggravate our current woes," said Lin Nan-chi, who was rescued late Tuesday.

(HK Edition 08/13/2009 page2)