Climate change: can Hong Kong businesses cope with a direct hit by a super typhoon at high tide?

Large swathes of Tsim Sha Tsui, Central, Wan Chai and Causeway Bay would have been inundated in case of a direct hit, non-profit says

Hong Kong faces challenge of strengthening infrastructure without overspending on over-the-top facilities, official says

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A flooded playground at Heng Fa Chuen, a Hong Kong housing estate, in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Mangkhut. Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 8:00am, 23 Nov 2019Updated: 9:53am, 23 Nov 2019

Super Typhoon Mangkhut, which left Hong Kong with a HK$3.1 billion (US$397 million) insurance bill as it swept past the city in the summer of 2018, could have been even more devastating, if it had hit directly during high tide.

According to researchers at China Water Risk (CWR), a Hong Kong-based non-profit initiative, large swathes of the business districts of Tsim Sha Tsui, Central, Wan Chai and Causeway Bay would have been inundated. The initiative used a digital terrain model to show areas lying up to 5 metres above sea level would have been flooded in this scenario.

“Hong Kong was lucky. Mangkhut could have caused a storm tide [in Quarry Bay as high as] 5.65 metres, which would have inundated Central … storm surges could have reached past Des Voeux Road [500 metres from the sea front], which would have been extremely costly and disruptive,” CWR said in a recent report.

Serious flooding was reported in Heng Fa Chuen and Shek O in eastern and southern Hong Kong Island, as well as Lei Yue Mun in southeast Kowloon. Mangkhut caused a maximum tide of 3.88 metres in Quarry Bay, 3 kilometres from Heng Fa Chuen.

Roads and the railway link to Hong Kong’s airport could have been flooded, and the cyclone could have disrupted four of the Greater Bay Area’s (GBA) seven airports, 43 of its 50 ports, as well as half of the casinos in Macau, CWR added.

“The natural inclination is to ignore these warnings as being alarmist, too distant … this certainly seems to be the prevailing attitude among governments and companies in the GBA,” it said.

Climate change: can Hong Kong businesses cope with a direct hit by a super typhoon at high tide?

Large swathes of Tsim Sha Tsui, Central, Wan Chai and Causeway Bay would have been inundated in case of a direct hit, non-profit says Hong Kong faces challenge of strengthening infrastructure without overspending on over-the-top facilities, official says

Large swathes of Tsim Sha Tsui, Central, Wan Chai and Causeway Bay would have been inundated in case of a direct hit, non-profit says

Hong Kong faces challenge of strengthening infrastructure without overspending on over-the-top facilities, official says