Taiwan gets a lot of rain, oftentimes torrential rain during the spring and summer months. This means that erosion and landslides happen quite often. In this blog, I would like to share some photos of recent landslides near my home in Nangang District of Taipei.
🏯 Planning your trip to Taipei? 🏮
Here are some top travel tips for you:
- Best time to visit: March-May, and October – November when the temperatures are nice and there is not as much rain
- How to get there: Taiwan High Speed Railway and Inter-City Bus
- Best places to stay: Yuanshan Grand Hotel or Fu Chang Hotel
- Book tours and activities in Taipei on Klook
- Stay connected with a local SIM
- Rent a car to explore distant sights
Drone Footage:
360 Degree Panorama
360 degree from the recent landslide near my house. This took way too long to make. 360 pano #129 originally posted Nov 14, 2022.
Posted by Foreigners in Taiwan 外國人在台灣 on Monday, March 6, 2023
Check out the 360 degree panorama above.
My Experience with Landslides in Taiwan
I had an opportunity to speak with one of the older residents of Nangang who owns a Beetle Nut field near Shanshui Eco Park. His father owned the land before him, and when he was young he remembers helping dig in the coal mines. Nangang is full of old coal mines from that era, and there used to be many single and double line railway tracks through the area connecting the mines. Also because of the mines, there were many piles of fill dirt which can now collapse at any time. This, combined with the sandstone terrain makes this area of northern Taiwan prone to landslides.
Also, most of the trees in Nangang were once cut down. New fruit trees and other fast growing trees were used for fuel and to make beams to hold up the coal mine tunnels.
Years of environmental neglect has left the landscape more prone to collapse. However, since about the 1980s, Taiwan has banned logging, and most of the mountains in Taipei are now protected forests. Let’s hope that Taiwan will continue to protect its environment to help prevent future landslides. That being said, with year after year of torrential rain, some landslides are still inevitable.
There are literally hundreds of landslides around Taiwan every year. There are usually a few major landslides every time there is torrential rain or a Typhoon. Taiwanese people are usually good about cleaning up the mess, clearing roads, or rebuilding if needed. However, there are large tracts of land in the central mountain range that are now inaccessible because landslides of claimed many of the old logging roads and trails in the mountains. It is like building a sandcastle before the tide comes. At the end of the day, when it comes to Taiwan’s mountains, nature is king.
Sorry this is not a comprehensive or scientific view of landslides in Taiwan, comparing different geography and which areas are more prone to landslides. Although I would like to do a blog like that, I do not have the time. Also, there are just too many landslides to keep track of. However, you can check out my blog on Taiwan’s deadliest landslide event ever, Typhoon Morakot, here.
