Days of torrential rain in Pingtung have caused agricultural losses and flooding, and the central government has increased subsidies for affected households. While this is good news for disaster victims, it also shows that local flood-control works still cannot keep pace with extreme rainfall.

• Pingtung received half a year's rainfall in five days; Premier Cho Jung-tai visited Nanzhou and Linluo to inspect the damage.
• Households flooded to a depth of 30 centimetres or more will receive NT$10,000, while those flooded above 50 centimetres can receive up to NT$30,000.
• Nearly 8,000 households nationwide are preliminarily estimated to have been flooded, and about 170 hectares of crops in Pingtung were damaged.
• Lemons, bananas, guavas and bitter gourds were the worst hit, with farmers seeing newly replanted crops washed away.
• Over the next four years, the central government will invest a further NT$8.4 billion to improve drainage and flood-detention facilities in Pingtung.

Outlook: The county government's emergency works are expected to be awarded in early September, and subsidy payments and repair projects will be approved on an accelerated basis, but the risk of renewed flooding remains until the end of the flood season.