21/08/2009 (Agence Europe) - By request Taiwanese and Portuguese authorities, the civil protection mechanism of the European Union was activated last weekend. The European Commission made an announcement to this effect on Tuesday 18 August. The objective is to make available these two countries the civil protection resources they have requested, to help deal with the consecutive floods as a result of Typhoon Morakot in Taïwan, and devastating forest fires in northern Portugal. The Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) located within the European Commission (DG Environment) will coordinate offers of help from the Member States of the network and match these with the requests for assistance made by Lisbon and Taiwan. (A.N./trans.fl)