At Liao's instruction dogs and equipment replaced soldiers in the search for victims. Cable TV channel TVBS showed three search dogs working in a mud-buried village.

Liao said earlier that a search dog's sense of smell is 200 times sharper than a human's, adding he did not understand why soldiers had to use their noses.

According to the China Times daily, some soldiers developed psychological problems after sniffing for the dead.

The military have not explained why they asked soldiers to search for corpses with their noses. The Taiwan press said there was a shortage of sniffer dogs, but Taipei had banned a South Korean rescue team from bringing in their animals.