Thousands of Volunteers — Including Visitors — Flock to Help Taiwan's Flood Victims
After Typhoon Ragasa triggered flooding and mudslides in Taiwan's Hualien County, thousands of volunteers — including foreign residents — streamed south to dig out homes and cook meals. The Buddhist charity Tzu Chi alone coordinated some 3,000 helpers, while volunteers earned the nicknames "Shovel Supermen" and "Cooking Supermen."
CommunityGNGV Editorial Team4 min read
When Typhoon Ragasa swept across Taiwan in the autumn of 2025, it left behind a brutal aftermath: floodwaters and mudslides surged through Hualien County, particularly the township of Guangfu, displacing hundreds of residents and burying homes in thick, heavy silt. What happened next, reported by Good News Network in October 2025, became a portrait of a society rushing to help its own. Thousands of volunteers — Taiwanese and foreign alike — packed onto trains and headed south to dig their neighbors out.
The Buddhist charity Tzu Chi was at the heart of the mobilization, coordinating roughly 3,000 volunteers by the following weekend. Taiwan Railway Corporation laid on extra trains to carry the surge of helpers, while county and national agencies arranged hotel housing for the displaced and stipends for essential supplies. The volunteers shoveled out homes choked with mud and cooked hot meals for exhausted families and fellow workers. Locals affectionately dubbed them the "Shovel Supermen" and the "Cooking Supermen."
Strikingly, the response crossed borders. Among those who picked up shovels were long-term foreign residents who had made Taiwan their home — including two Ukrainian women who had lived on the island for nine years and a Japanese resident named Saito Tadataka. Their presence underscored a simple truth about disaster relief: when a community is in pain, the question of where someone was born matters far less than whether they are willing to show up and lend a hand.
Disasters reveal the fault lines in a society, but they also reveal its strength. The scenes from Hualien — strangers passing buckets, foreigners standing shoulder to shoulder with locals, charities and railways and governments moving in concert — testify to a community that refused to let its most vulnerable members face the mud alone. Recovery from a typhoon takes months, even years. But the speed and warmth of Taiwan's volunteer surge offered something just as vital as cleared homes: the reassurance that no one would be left to dig themselves out by themselves.
