Two bodies found in Macau car park raise Typhoon Hato death toll to 12
Local residents fume at official response as half of city still without electricity in wake of strongest storm in 53 years
Macau’s local Typhoon Hato death toll rose to eight on Thursday morning after two more bodies were found in a flooded car park, as residents slammed officials for what they said were slow rescue operations and bad contingency plans.
At least 150 people were injured in Macau, and residents had by Thursday morning been struggling with a massive power failure for nearly 24 hours, after the storm battered the former Portuguese enclave the day before.
At 3.45am, firefighters found a man’s body in the car park of Classic Bay on Rua da Ribeira. Less than half an hour later, customs officers found another dead man at the same site.
A man surnamed Kwan, the son of one of the dead men, told local media outside the building that his 60-year-old father had been trapped inside from 11am on Wednesday, and firefighters only arrived at 3pm.
“We had to use a very small exhaust to pump the water out to save our father. We called the fire services for a bigger exhaust to rescue him, but no one answered our requests,” Kwan said.