921 Earthquake was an unprecedented casualty to the lives, buildings and public facilities in central Taiwan. The places affected presented a view of debris. Soil and stone flew all over the place. The important roads and connecting-outside road were seriously damaged. Therefore, before proceeding with the rescue, the fallen stones must be eliminated and the road repaired and then the rescue machines, tools, manpower and materials are able to enter into the disaster areas. In Rescue Mission, Time is everything. The Construction and Planning Administration-owned heavy machinery team having 31 sets of various kinds of machines and tools, manpower of 70 equipped with instruments in north, central and south area teams. All of these were brought deep into the disaster areas to work with the people in disaster rescue centers of all counties and cities. Regardless of their personal safety, they performed the rescue mission. Especially the central area machinery team, whose rescue mission was extremely		urgent, so needed to seize every second and started the operation immediately. Our own construction unit, heavy machinery construction team, mobilized all machines and personnel on hand to arrive at Nan Tou Stadium, Rescue Command Center, on Sep. 23 1999 and promptly plunged into the mission of rescue and road repair. Aftershock killed rescue comrades On-site rescue and road repair mission continued several days in hardship. Unexpectedly, our people sacrificed their lives on the morning of Sep. 26. Chen Jiu Xiong was a heavy machine operator and squad leader. He was also one of the team that went into the 921 disaster areas first. At 6:00 am on Sep. 26, Chen Jiu Xiong drove the excavator to Shin Long village of Shui Li Hsiang and tried to cleave "Tou Road Line 61" for the follow-up rescue to proceed.

Construction and planning Administration of Ministry of Interior