20091203 Coral - a silent victim of Typhoon Morakot.wmv

Coral - a silent victim of Typhoon Morakot

Typhoon Morakot brought record rainfall, deadly landslides and flooding to southern Taiwan. The human tragedy of the disaster is well documented, but today we start a new series on the "Silent Victims" of the storm - the animals and the plants that cannot speak for themselves. Conservation groups have discovered that the coral reefs around Taiwan - including areas off the Northeast Coast, Penghu, Kending, and Green, Orchid, and Liuqiu Islands - have all been badly damage. The coral has been smashed by uprooted trees; floating wood on the surface has robbed the water of oxygen; and silt brought down by swollen rivers is also choking the coral. We go under the surface of the ocean to find out more.

Morakot wiped out coral reefs
What you see under water is terrible. It used to be like a garden. But after the typhoon, a big area was swept away. It's indescribable. It's like a ghost town - lonely and desolate.

Rocks and waves smashed coral
Chen Zhaolun(陳昭倫) from Academia Sinica's Biodiversity Research Center, says huge waves and rolling rocks, brought by Typhoon Morakot in early August, destroyed coral on the ocean floor off Taiwan. NS

Volunteers, who record activity on the seabed, say this year the photographs they took showed scenes of devastation. The worst affected area was Orchid Island. Even coral formations weighing over a ton were ripped up at the roots by tidal waves.

Scientists: Years needed to recover
In other places where the coral survived, the fish have gone. No one knows how long it will take for nature to recover.

Academia Sinica Biodiversity Center, Chen Zhaolun:
"Scientist can't tell how many years it will take. From past experience, even after ten years it won't recover."

Recovery is hard because coral grows very slowly - at a rate of one centimeter a year. Yet it only took one disaster to destroy it all.

Huang Zilun(黃梓倫) from the Taitung Fisheries Research Institute says the rock pools are full of broken pieces of coral.

Algae, mud, wood chips cover reefs
Even the reefs that escaped a battering are not out of the woods yet.

Taitung Fisheries Research Institute, Huang Zilun:
"Starting from here, there is brown algae growing over the whole thing, and covering it with mud. After it's covered, it looks like it's dead."

Swollen rivers brought down huge amounts of sediment into the ocean, harming not only the coral but muddying the seawater and suffocating the fish. Huang Zilun says driftwood has choked tidal pools with wood chips.

Taitung Fisheries Research Institute, Huang Zilun:
"The fish underneath can't survive, because they have no air and lack oxygen. We tested the dissolved oxygen, and it's generally down to 2 or 3, which is very low."

Fish popualation suffers
Comparing samples from the same area before and after the typhoon, the researchers have found that the fish varieties and populations have significantly dropped.

Huang Zilun says he used to catch 100-200 fish from 20-30 different species, but today the numbers are well below average.

Trees uprooted by typhoon clog coast
When the tide goes out it should reveal rock pools, teaming with life. Instead, trees uprooted by the typhoon litter the coast, clogging the foreshore, and reducing the abundance of sea creatures.

Changbin Ocean Resources Conservation Assoc., Chairperson Chen Shiyue:
"Driftwood is everywhere. If you walk down the beach, you can go for 200 meters and your feet won't touch the water. They won't get wet, and you won't see any coral."

Morakot the latest in a series of disasters
As climate change makes the oceans warmer and more acidic, coral reefs around the globe are under threat. From coral bleaching around Taiwan in 1998, to the outbreak of black disease on the reefs of Green Island in 2006, then the massive death of Penghu's coral during the winter of 2008, and now the crisis caused by Typhoon Morakot: if conservation steps are not taken soon, one disaster after another will eventually wipe out the ocean's coral.

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Tags:

• Tzu Chi
• Coral
• Typhoon Morakot