- guardian.co.uk, Monday January 24 2000 00.33 GMT
Illness and bad weather meant that 12 of the volunteers had been taken by helicopter from Taransay to Tarbert on neighbouring Harris, said the programme's makers.
The £2.4m Castaway 2000, the preliminary episodes of which have been a welcome ratings hit for BBC1, was supposed to document 36 people living together away from modern civilisation for a year on an inhospitable island.
The first fortnight of what the BBC billed as a "unique social experiment" was dogged by problems as the castaways struggled to settle on the unforgiving island.
Some volunteers were taken off earlier this month with flu; the others left after gale force winds ripped roofs from their huts.
The series was intended to be about how the 28 adults and eight children organised themselves as a community and dealt with problems, said its executive producer, Jeremy Mills.
The "teething problems" had not undermined the project because it was unfair to expect the modern day castaways to live in unfinished accommodation. "It was just temporary until the builders finished. We had 20 people, including children, sleeping in one room, and many of them had flu. We couldn't risk it."
Some of the 12 were still in the holiday flats, he said, but he promised that once the series got started properly nothing other than a medical emergency would allow the volunteers to leave Taransay.
All the early misfortunes are being covered in the programme, which will continue on BBC1 on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"Two-thirds of the people are still there and have always been there. This is not a physical survival series; it is a sur vival series of the emotional and psychological aspects of leaving the world you know behind.
"The viewers have not been conned. The intention was to see if you could create a society for disparate people from different backgrounds.
"The very fact that things have been forced upon them by bad weather and illness is something we thought would always happen."
A BBC spokeswoman said that "in those circumstances it would have been irresponsible to keep people on the island".
