Attachments
This handbook provides information about the disaster management (DM) system of Taiwan.* It includes key actors, natural hazards, and context to inform international planners and practitioners who may respond to a disaster in Taiwan or work alongside Taiwan responders in disaster exercises and related engagements.
The island’s geography and location along the Pacific Ring of Fire means that typhoons, floods, landslides, earthquakes, and droughts are common. In an average year, three to five typhoons make landfall, and one damaging earthquake shakes the island. More than 70% of the land area and population are exposed to three or more natural hazards.
Taiwan’s contemporary DM structure was framed out by the 2000 Disaster Prevention and Protection Act (DPPA), which was passed following the second deadliest earthquake in the island’s recorded history.
On 21 September 1999, a 7.7-magnitude quake struck near ChiChi (or Jiji) town in central Taiwan; it killed approximately 2,400 people and injured 10,000 others. The devastating earthquake prompted reforms in building codes and their enforcement, construction monitoring, and DM organization.
The 2000 DPPA addressed the whole DM cycle and has been revised repeatedly as new disaster issues have emerged.
Taiwan retains a single-hazard DM approach.
Instead of one national DM organization, the agency in charge of a disaster response depends on the hazard type. Given the frequency of typhoons and earthquakes, which fall under the purview of the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), the MOI’s National Fire Agency (NFA) has amassed a significant amount of disaster experience and influences the DM system with a fire- and response-centric model. The NFA has extensive disaster training facilities in central Taiwan that were upgraded in June 2025 to become the largest firefighter training center in Asia and third largest in the world. The stated vision is to serve as a major hub for disaster response training for the Indo-Pacific region.
Taiwan is reframing crisis management toward a civil resilience approach. This process started with President Lai’s June 2024 announcement of the establishment of the Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience Committee, which aims to ensure that government and society maintain normal operations during a national emergency or natural disaster.
This initiative is spurring change in the DM system to relate disaster exercises to Whole-of-Society Defense Resilience, conduct fewer scripted exercises, and include more civil-military cooperation among interagency coordination.
Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation, including not being recognized by the United Nations (UN), poses a challenge for its international engagements and coordination. In a largescale disaster or other humanitarian crisis that requires international assistance, UN entities and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement lack an effective way to engage with Taiwan without agreement from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Despite these roadblocks, Taiwan has significantly increased its DM capabilities and capacity in recent decades. In April 2024, a Moment Magnitude Scale (Mw) 7.5 earthquake struck off the east coast, resulting in 18 fatalities and limited infrastructure damage.
There were dramatically fewer fatalities than the comparable Chi-Chi earthquake, representing a major improvement in resilience. In the intervening 25 years, Taiwan also significantly developed its own search-and-rescue teams, meeting international standards and often deploying rescue teams to assist other countries that accept their help. Taiwan continues to develop domestic capacity and international partnerships to increase its resilience for future disasters or crises.