Army Prepares Troops in Southern Mountains for Low‑Pressure Rainstorm

The southern region of Taiwan has recently been affected by the combined forces of a significantly strengthening southwest monsoon and an approaching large low-pressure system. Weather forecasts indicate that rainfall intensity could reach torrential or even localized extremely torrential levels, prompting the Central Weather Administration to issue high-level alerts for the mountainous areas in central and southern Taiwan. Facing potential compound disasters such as flash floods, mudslides, and road collapses that may be triggered by days of heavy rainfall, the national armed forces are taking no chances and are proactively guarding against potential risks. The Army Fourth Operations Area, responsible for national defense security and local disaster prevention and relief missions in the southern region, has officially launched pre-deployment today under the coordination of the central and local disaster response mechanisms. This demonstrates the military's proactive attitude of "disaster prevention being more important than disaster relief, and evacuating prior to a disaster taking place," ensuring the utmost protection for the lives and property of residents in the southern mountainous areas.

According to the planning and actual deployment of the Fourth Operations Area, pre-positioned forces have been deployed in an advanced manner to high-risk mountainous areas in Kaohsiung City, such as the Namasia District Office and the Liugui District Office. These forces not only possess the professional capabilities to execute various special rescue operations and disaster reconnaissance missions, but they are also equipped with a variety of search and rescue and communication equipment. This enables them to work closely with local governments at the critical moment when external transportation is cut off by mudslides, assisting in emergency evacuations, material replenishment, and medical evacuations. By proactively advancing forces to the front lines, the military avoids potential traffic delays that could occur when deploying from barracks only after a disaster has struck, significantly shortening the response time for disaster relief.

In addition to the proactive deployment of regular combat troops, this flood prevention and disaster relief operation fully demonstrates the integration of the capacities of all-to-defense and the local reserve system. Reserve force counseling cadres and volunteers in areas such as Liugui District in Kaohsiung City and Taiwu Township in Pingtung County immediately joined the disaster preparedness work of local township offices. These members of the reserve counseling centers, who are familiar with the local geography, customs, and residents, coordinated with village and neighborhood wardens to go door-to-door providing persuasion and compiling rosters, assisting with preventive evacuation operations targeting vulnerable groups such as protected individuals, elderly people living alone, and pregnant women. The dual-track advancement of reserve and active-duty forces has effectively produced a synergistic effect in grassroots mobilization and civil affairs coordination.

From the macro perspective of national security and regional defense, the threat posed by extreme weather to Taiwan has become increasingly severe in recent years, particularly when summer southwesterly airflows interact with typhoons or low-pressure systems, leaving the central and southern mountainous areas bearing the brunt. Painful historical lessons from past disasters, such as Typhoon Morakot, have made Taiwanese society deeply realize that mountain disaster prevention and relief must shift toward a model of "advance deployment and preventive evacuation." The pre-positioning of forces by the Fourth Operations Area prior to heavy rainfall actually causing a disaster not only fulfills the military's statutory duty to support local governments, but also verifies in practical action the resilience of military units in responding to enemy situations and non-traditional security threats, ensuring that social operations and public morale are maintained at a state of minimal impact when facing natural disasters.

As the low-pressure system continues to affect the waters and land surrounding Taiwan, the heavy rainfall zones in the south are likely to continue expanding in the next few days, and the soil moisture content in the mountainous areas has reached the verge of saturation, posing a potential crisis of collapses at any time. The Fourth Operations Area emphasized that the military will maintain round-the-clock close contact with the Central Weather Administration and local government disaster response centers, closely monitoring changes in rainfall and disaster developments, and remaining ready to dispatch additional reserve forces and heavy engineering machinery into rescue operations. The military urges residents in the southern mountainous areas to cooperate with local government preventive evacuation instructions and avoid lingering in dangerous areas during the alert period, so that the military and civilians can work hand in hand to safely weather this severe test of heavy rainfall.