Taipei, Aug 19 (DPA) Taiwan Wednesday stopped soldiers from searching for hundreds of villagers buried under mudslides using their own sense of smell after the interior minister said it was unhygienic and inefficient.
Interior Minister Liao Liao-yi expressed anger and shock after two newspapers carried photos showing soldiers crawling on all fours sniffing for corpses at several mudslide sites in Kaohsiung County in southern Taiwan. The rescue forces lack sniffer dogs.
Recovery of the victims was difficult because the dead are buried under 3-10 metres of mud and rocks from mudslides caused by Typhoon Morakot Aug 8. The storm left at least 127 dead, 45 injured and 307 missing.
One female solder said that since she did not know the smell of a corpse, another soldier led her to a corpse that had been dug up, so that she could smell it and remember the “death smell”.
At Liao’s instruction dogs and equipment replaced soldiers in the search for victims. Cable TV channel TVBS showed three search dogs working in a mud-buried village.
Liao said earlier that a search dog’s sense of smell is 200 times sharper than a human’s, adding he did not understand why soldiers had to use their noses.
According to the China Times daily, some soldiers developed psychological problems after sniffing for the dead.
The military have not explained why they asked soldiers to search for corpses with their noses. The Taiwan press said there was a shortage of sniffer dogs, but Taipei had banned a South Korean rescue team from bringing in their animals.
