From the South China Morning Post this week in: 1970
This was the week of the 'big drench', when Hong Kong was 'deluged with 15 inches [381mm] of rain in four days', 10 inches of which fell in just over an hour on May 13, a Wednesday. The Observatory reported that the downpour was the heaviest since June 12, 1966, when 15.06 inches were recorded in one day and when flash floods claimed '50 dead, 11 presumed dead and 30 missing'.
This time, two people died, two were injured and a four-year-old boy was missing. 'The storm's first victim was a 14-year-old girl who fell from a hillside into a nullah in Sai Kung.' The second victim was a 40-year-old woman, Ng Hoi-hing, whose body was recovered after she was washed away by floodwaters in Diamond Hill.
Among the worst affected were squatters living in huts on a hill off Shiu Fai Terrace who had to be forcibly evacuated. Only about 150 of the 257 shack-dwellers took refuge in the temporary accommodation offered in the former naval dockyard in Queensway.
Classes and exams were postponed, four flights were cancelled at Kai Tak and vehicles stalled in flooded streets, with a photo showing two cars stranded in Princess Margaret Road, Kowloon. Public transport was in 'chaos' and the Kowloon Motor Bus Company said it carried only about half of its average daily number of passengers.
But the rains had boosted reservoirs, bringing an end to drought in the New Territories, where about a quarter of the rice crop had been saved.