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SCMP Reporter

LANTAU villagers were last night counting the cost after a series of floods and landslides left one missing, presumed drowned, and wreaked widespread havoc.

  The Transport Department said roads were so treacherous that no one should go to Lantau this weekend unless they lived there.

  The village of Tong Fuk was apparently worst hit. A stormwater channel above the village broke at 8 am, sending a torrent of water, pebbles and rocks as large as footballs cascading between the houses.

  ''There was a tremendous roar, then a loud boom, and the water was coming into the house,'' villager Yik Siu-hung said. ''The flood went on and on, and didn't stop for an hour.

  ''I don't know how we are going to clear this up,'' he said, surveying the mess of sludge and shingles that used to be his lawn.

  ''The storm channel should have been cleared. It was full of rubbish, and it just couldn't cope,'' he said.

  Cheung Fo, 73, and his wife Cheung Ng-chen were trapped by the rising flood waters. ''We tried to rescue what we could, getting it off the floor and onto tables,'' he said. ''But most of our furniture and electrical goods were covered by water.''   At a landslip nearby, boulders the size of a refrigerator had come crashing down on a bus stop, crushing it completely.

   It was not until 3 pm that bulldozers managed to clear a vehicle-wide path through the debris and reconnect the village to the island.

  A taxi plunged into the Pui O river at 6 am as the driver tried to cross a bridge on his way to Ham Tin village. The vehicle was pulled out by firemen at 10 am, but the driver Wong Tun, 65, was still missing.

  The river was so swollen at the time of the accident it was covering the bridge.

   Architect John Reeves was in nearby Pui O at the same time: ''I was waiting to catch a bus at about 6.30, but the floodwater was getting very deep. You could not see the road any more,'' he said.

  ''Then suddenly the water turned muddy. I walked down the road a little bit, but it got scary and I went home.''   Mr Reeves was one of many who tried to struggle into work, unaware of how dangerous conditions were.

  The road between Mui Wo and Pui O was virtually impassable. In at least four places mud and water had broken through the thin concrete skin on slopes.

 Elsewhere, the soil underneath the road had been washed away, leaving crash barriers and telephone cables hanging in the air.

  Police blocked off the road to all but emergency repair teams. There was no public transport until 5 pm.

  The Transport Department said last night the Tung Chong road was still blocked, while buses and lorries were banned between Mui Wo and Pui O.

  Sun Wai resident Mark Newport said: ''I was watching television at midnight, and I heard them say all the warning signals were down. When I woke up the floodwater outside was over my knees.''   ''It's not the first time this has happened.''   Farmer Cheung Yiu-wah, 75, was up to her knees in mud trying to rescue what she could.

   ''All my crops have been ruined,'' she said.

  ''Usually I can make about $200 a day by selling my vegetables at market, but now I'm just pulling up what I can to eat myself. The rest are all dead.'' 



Villagers count cost of flood damage