Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s president, who faces growing criticism over his leadership in the wake of the disaster brought by Typhoon Morakot, on Tuesday ordered Taiwan's military to shift its priorities to make disaster search and rescue its “main job”.

“Of course their job is to defend Taiwan [but] our enemy is not necessarily the people across the Taiwan Strait but nature,” Mr Ma said at a press conference. “As a result of climate change, disasters like Morakot are not that unusual. We will have to prepare for the worst.”