After Taiwan’s worst storm in 50 years killed hundreds in massive mudslides last month, the government blamed the freak weather while survivors said the government’s slow response after the Aug. 7-9 storm made matters even worse.

Only recently, with reconstruction under way, have officials in the six-county disaster area begun asking what contributing factors may have caused the steep mountainsides to give way, hurling boulders and walls of mud onto riverside villages below. Nearly 770 people are presumed to have died, most of them buried alive.

In the absence of any official declaration of the underlying causes, residents have filled the void with speculation.

Taiwan’s forestry bureau says native subtropical trees had covered most of the deadly mudslide areas of Kaohsiung County in southern Taiwan, doing more to hold mountain sides intact than to loosen them. Villagers had planted mainly bamboo, mangoes, peaches and taro on the lower hillsides. They had shunned betel nut plantations and high-mountain tea, which are common elsewhere on the island and are notorious for destablising soil for lack of deep roots, an agricultural official said.

Later this month, officials will investigate accusations that blasting for a 15-km water diversion tunnel in the worst-hit village caused erosion that made the area susceptible to mudslides, the Government Information Office said. But Taiwan’s water resources chief denied that tunnel construction might have weakened the moutain sides. Other disaster authorities point toward Taiwan’s fragile geology and ecosystem, including repeated earthquakes, typhoons and an early 2009 drought that have left hillsides at increased risk, allowing even huge deep-rooted trees to fall last month.

“Taiwan is an important case study in climate change,” said Chern Jenn-chuan, deputy minister of the cabinet’s Public Construction Commission. “We can say that natural disasters will be more and more severe. We can be sure of that.”

Mountain villagers and land-use experts offer a more ominous theory that could mean disaster for other communities on the steep and populous island during future typhoons, which are common every year from July through October. Their claim: Decades of forestry, farming and over-population have loosened mountain soil all over the island, leaving it prone to massive slides.

Government-sponsored logging through most of the 1900s thinned forests that would otherwise help fortify the soil. Logging is banned today, but the old forests have not grown back to their original scale. The widespread planting of high-elevation farms starting from former strongman Chiang Kai-shek’s era decades ago has further weakened hillsides, especially where villagers rely on crops such as betel nut that do not anchor the soil.

“These are facts. The high mountain topography and climate of Taiwan are unique. You can’t allow high-density farming,” said Alang, an aide to legislator Chen Ying, who represents Taiwan’s numerous mountain-dwelling aboriginals in parliament.

Taiwan’s population of 23 million, the world’s 15th densest, itself has spilled too far into the mountains along with tracts of city-like development rather than the well-spaced, tree-covered homes found at high elevations overseas, said Chen Hung-yu, a geosciences professor at National Taiwan University. “It should be said that the population is too high, that not so many people should be living up there,” he said.

The island government, though hesitant to discuss historical factors behind the mudslides, will limit the width of new roads in disaster-prone areas and urge up to 60 communities of a few dozen to a few thousand households apiece to move to safer ground, Chern said. Officials will also re-examine farming and forestry policies with an eye toward change, he said.

Images from the typhoon disaster area: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shelterboxuk/3837129820/

The long-distance cyclists said it was dreadful, the marathon runners live in fear of it and the tennis players want extra breaks to help them withstand its effects.

But how bad is the Beijing air really? Is it miserable beyond endurance for athletes busting their lungs to deliver peak performance? Or are the smog stories a smokescreen, part of the exaggeration attendant on any Olympic Games?

I decided to conduct a completely unscientific test. How would my 44-year-old physique, finely honed by two decades hunched over a laptop writing stories, cope with running around the Olympic venues?

Not very well is the answer, though in my own and Beijing’s defence some of that was due to jetlag. Today was easier, as the temperature had dropped to an acceptable 25 degrees Celsius and a light rain cooled my progress. But yesterday was miserable, with about 8 degrees more heat, high humidity and not a breath of wind to wick away the sweat.

I did about an 8km (5 mile) route, zigzagging through security checkpoints, past the vast media centre and between the bubble-wrap Water Cube swimming pool and the Bird’s Nest stadium. Could I breathe easily? No. Was that because of pollution? Impossible to say.

I’m not an Olympic athlete and was proud enough to trudge round my route in about 40 minutes. That’s more than I would take to do the distance back home in north London, but not disgraceful for someone with my profoundly sedentary lifestyle. My throat didn’t hurt, which is often a telltale sign of air contaminants.

For north Europeans, particularly those used to London’s perennial rain, I think the big problem is the heat. I felt like I was running in a sauna. Sweat showered off me and it took a long, cold bath to cool me down. Pity the marathon runners from Britain and Scandinavia. Put your money on athletes from Asia who are used to such conditions.

And what did I have the energy to notice on my way round the venues?

That China loves pumping out schmaltzy music from public address systems lining the avenue between the stadiums. That I kept interrupting the photographs proud local tourists were taking of themselves in front of the skeletal structure of the Bird’s Nest. And that running with a large plastic-laminated accreditation card around your neck is extremely awkward. If I had tried to leave it behind I’d have been locked out of the Olympic areas.

WEATHER GRAPHIC: Latest four-day forecast and air quality reading for Beijing. Reuters News Graphics Service.

The opening ceremony for the Beijiing Olympics on Friday was a dramatic assertion of China’s power and nationalism.

But as if having the Olympic cauldron lit by a “flying” gymnast Li Ning, suspended by wires high above the heads of 91,000 spectators, wasn’t proof enough that even gravity could be conquered by the world’s most populous nation, the government defied the elements as well.

China “blew away” threatening rain clouds with a barrage of more 1,000 rain dispersal rockets, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Chinese meteorologists told the agency it was the largest rain dispersal operation in China, and the first time that such technology had been used to ensure the weather condition for Olympic opening.

Photo: This combination picture shows former gymnast Li Ning of China suspended in mid-air as he lights the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium August 8, 2008. The stadium is also known as the Bird’s Nest. REUTERS/Jerry Lampen

With sensitivities running high among Beijing officials who promised a Green Olympics, including clear skies, any suggestion that the air quality is actually less than clear has caused some hurt feelings among the hosts.

It’s a prickly issue, because some athletes are limiting their time in Beijing, while four American track cyclists arrived yesterday in black face masks.

In fact, weather conditions have run the gamut in the final weeks ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony — from delightful to downright awful — and that has revealed a sharp contrast in the terms many foreign journalists use and those used by Chinese officials and media, who cite a wide range of terms but generally avoid admitting there’s actually any pollution.

These include terms translated as “fog”, “haze”, “static breeze”, “adverse weather”, “sauna” conditions, “temperature inversion”, “cloudy days”, “dark days” and of course “blue sky days”.

“Just like in the shower you cannot see the person across from you, but there is no pollution,” Du Shaozhong, deputy director of Beijing’s municipal environmental protection bureau, reassured journalists at a news conference last week. Days before he said “cloudy days, foggy days do not necessarily result from pollution in the air.”

Some editors prefer to let pictures tell the story, but Du had a ready reply for that too: “Pictures cannot reflect reality,” the Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying in a report. “They are not accurate. I really urge you not to use photos to base your assessment of air quality.”

PHOTO: U.S. track cyclist Michael Friedman arrives at Beijing airport wearing a mask, August 5, 2008. REUTERS/Issei Kato

Olympic organisers are praying that it doesn’t rain on the athletes’ parade at next Friday’s opening ceremony, but a little drizzle might in fact add some fizzle to the lavish show.

“The lighting effects will be more beautiful with a bit of rain,” said Yves Pepin, a French hi-tech wizard, who is a senior member of the creative team for the 3-1/2 hour extravaganza.

What the team fears is the sort of deluge that can batter the Chinese capital during August. “If it rains a lot then life will get very difficult. We have a plan B if this happens and some parts of the show will have to be downsized, although not cut altogether,” said Pepin, giving nothing more away.

With this in mind, a long range weather forecast released on Sunday provides some hope — there is a 41 percent chance of rain on Aug. 8, but a prolonged drenching is unlikely, according to Beijing’s Meteorological Bureau.

Even if it does rain, most of the 91,000 spectators in the Bird’s Nest will be fine thanks to a broad roof that extends over the seating area. The athletes and performers aren’t quite so lucky because plans for a fully retractable roof were abandoned to save costs, which means the arena is exposed to the elements.

In the nation that invented gunpowder, fireworks look certain to play a major role in the opening and closing ceremonies, but here too, the Chinese are quietly confident that their plans won’t be blown apart by the weather.

“With modern firework techniques, our firework display will not be affected by rain,” said Wang Yubin, deputy chief engineer at the Meteorological Bureau.

PHOTO: Fireworks light the sky as part of a general rehearsal for the opening ceremony for the Olympic games August 2, 2008 REUTERS/Jason Lee

UPDATE: I’ve added a video of the fireworks. Check it out below: