Huang Jung-tsun, president of China Medical University who served as executive director of the 921 Earthquake Post-Disaster Recovery Commission, recalled that 13 minutes after the magnitude 7.3 quake struck, the military responded to calls for assistance and were able to report to the relevant government agencies about the situation on the ground.

"That response time was faster than in any other country, " Huang said on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the tragedy.

Many of the servicemen were young, barely 20, and had never been on an actual battlefield. They were horrified at the scenes they encountered when they arrived in Chi Chi in Nantou County, the epicenter of the temblor that struck Taiwan on Sept. 21, 1999.

Entering what must have seemed to them like a war zone, they saw entire blocks of collapsed buildings, dead bodies, and many people trapped under tons of rubble.

In race against time, they dug through the rubble trying to save lives.

When night fell, the county was thrown into darkness because the earthquake had disrupted the electricity supply. Fear and uncertainty reigned as aftershocks continued to rock the area. People slept on the streets, afraid to go indoors.

Amid the devastation and despite their inexperience, the young soldiers worked tirelessly in unfamiliar circumstances.

Apart from rescuing earthquake victims, helping to restore disrupted traffic, and distributing relief supplies, the servicemen had another task that many thought was the hardest of all - moving corpses to local funeral homes.

The Nantou County funeral parlor could not cope with the number of bodies from the quake, therefore some had to be placed in makeshift funeral homes nearby.

For at least one week, the young military servicemen worked day and night with no reprieve from the sound of Buddhist monks chanting mantras to pacify the souls of the dead and the drone of compressors on containers that were being used as makeshift morgues.

Lin Ming-chen, a Kuomintang legislator and then head of Chi Chi township, said that after the quake he immediately called for help from the military, with which he had close relations.

"The military was very helpful in transporting bodies to funeral parlors and clearing rubble," Lin said.

The military rescue and relief operation was led by General Chen Chen-hsiang, commander of the Army at the time and now a senior adviser to the president.

Chen said that shortly after the deadly tremor occurred at 1: 47 a.m., the military instructed the 10th Army Corps stationed nearby to rush to the scene and to report their findings.

All the reports were the same - "the situation is very, very serious, " Chen said. He therefore decided immediately to launch an all-out rescue operation.

A rescue command center, headed by then deputy Army commander Sung Chuan-chiang, was set up at the Nantou County Stadium.

Within 12 hours of the quake, the Army had mobilized thousands of military servicemen and transported to the stadium 200,000 packets of rations, 1,800 first aid kits, 50 large tents, 20,000 blankets and 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel.

Military helicopters that landed at the stadium and Dongshih Riverside Park helped transport the injured to hospitals in the area.

Then General Chief of Staff Tang Yiau-min said that in the following days, the military transported 100,000 packets of rations, 30,000 bottles of mineral water, and instant food every day to the quake-affected areas of Puli, Shihgang, Dongshih and Sinchuan, which were cut off from the rest of the country after the quake.