"Were you scared? How is your house?" asks a woman in a neat blue uniform.
All around her is chaos; rescue workers are trying to save those trapped in collapsed buildings. The dead are being pulled from the rubble. Against such a backdrop, her sincerity and kindness is a welcome offer.
Nearby are others, one holding the hands of a resident, another handing out a hot bowl of soup and vegetarian food.
PHOTO: PAO CHI-HUA, LIBERTY TIMES
She is one of the thousands of relief workers from the Tzuchi Buddhist Compassion Relief Association (
Media reports and public criticism during the past week have addressed such issues as mobilization and efficiency, but no criticism was cast on Tzuchi, which mobilized around 20,000 people to help out in relief efforts.
Founded in 1966 by Master Shi Cheng Yen (
When a China Airlines jet crashed in Taoyuan in 1998 killing 202 people, Tzuchi was there.
When Typhoon Herb hit the island in 1996, Tzuchi was there. And when floods caused by Typhoon Zeb and Typhoon Babs struck Taiwan in October 1998, Tzuchi was there.
And after the 921 earthquake struck, Tzuchi members were mobilized in less than two hours.
The quake hit at 1:47am on Sept. 21. According to Tzuchi members, by 3:00am, the organization had set up a rescue and relief center at its Taichung branch.
"I was woken up by the quake and immediately called other members in Taichung," said Tsai Su-lien (
Commissioners went to banks to draw the money for consolatory funds and others went to buy the vegetables and rice for hot meals, Tsai said.
On the third day after the quake, the group distributed NT$160 million to families who lost relatives in the tragedy and to those who were seriously injured.
According to Tsai, Tzuchi provided around 4,000 meals per day in Tali City (
At another quake-stricken area in Nantou County, Tzuchi dished out more than 10,000 daily meals according to another commissioner, Lo Mei-chu (
"In total, there were hundreds of thousands of meals provided at all the rescue sites in Taiwan," Lo added.
"As long as the rescue work continues, we will be providing meals and assistance everyday," Tsai Su-lien said.
Tzuchi's Vice Chief Executive Officer, Lin Pi-yu (
"In many cases we arrived first on the scene, helping dig out bodies and contacting rescue teams," Lin said. "In Tungshi township, we washed the bodies of the dead. Every three hours, we had to turn bodies over in the temporary frozen container, to prevent them from sticking together. We embraced residents at the disaster sites and helped children take showers. When they have complaints about the government, we try to ease them."
For many victims in disaster areas, Tzuchi volunteers -- many of whom are female -- seemed like a group of caring mothers.
Tzuchi has over four million members worldwide. Its leaders -- 3,000 commissioners, mostly female -- are in charge of each township and each township has five teams of 20-30 members.
Lin Pen-hsuan (
In Tali there were eight teams organized, with each team in charge of several streets, Lin said. Open areas suddenly were turned into large soup kitchens.
Tzuchi's other advantage in relief work is its vast experience in international relief efforts over the past eight years. Tzuchi has worked in 28 different countries.
Tzuchi started its international relief work in 1991 when it raised funds for relief work for floods in central and east China.
From 1995, the group started cooperating with the French medical group Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) to help in disasters around the world, including the famine in North Korea, floods in Cambodia and hurricanes in several central America countries.
So far, the group has established elementary schools in 13 provinces in China.
Recently, the group sent aid to refugees in Rwanda and Macedonia and helped victims of the earthquake in Turkey last month.
"We were the seventh international relief team to arrive in Turkey," said Lin Pi-yu.
Ting Ren-jie (
In his book,Ting says that Tzuchi's power, which has blossomed from the simple benevolent actions of women, is now a powerful and influential force.
"Master Cheng Yen harnessed the power of Taiwan's civil society and turned it into the biggest and most mobilized civil group in Taiwan," Ting wrote.
Many come to Tzuchi because of the opportunity to help others, Lin says.
"Many Taiwanese, particularly the middle classes, want to be part of a charity to help people. Joining Tzuchi gives them a sense of contentment and achievement -- Tzuchi needs me," Lin says.
At the same time, the group provides members with a flexible method of developing their spirituality, Lin says.
Group members remain humble, despite their achievements.
"We feel pressured that we're compared with the government," said Lo Mei-chu, a commissioner of the group's Sanchung branch in Taipei County. "The country needs to maintain its own image, we should not discredit it ... We just want to mobilize the goodness of the Taiwanese people. We always compete to work hard."
"No one forces you to do relief work or tells you which job to take, so you always have to find things to do. Especially at the disaster scenes, wherever things are needed, we have to be there," said another member.
For them, the words of Master Cheng Yen are important.
"Compassion need not be spoken, it just needs to be practiced," she said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary