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Hong Kong’s Typhoon Mangkhut response highlights value of community spirit in tackling natural disasters
Paul Yip says while the government’s efforts to prepare for the typhoon were commendable, a better surveillance and monitoring system, drawing on community information, could have minimised chaos in the storm’s aftermath
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The damage caused by Typhoon Mangkhut in Hong Kong has been substantial with more than 400 people injured, fortunately without serious casualties.
Hong Kong’s altruistic spirit has been strong and vibrant after the typhoon. Students have helped clean up their schools, the tourism sector offered free bus rides to residents in the New Territories, volunteers from one church distributed food to the elderly, to give just a few examples.
Given the massive scale of the destruction, simply waiting for the government to handle the entire clean-up operation would have been unrealistic so it was heartening to witness the involvement of the community. This is exactly how we can leverage community resources to help each other.
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Hong Kong has coped well with natural disasters due to the development of better infrastructure. Based on Observatory records, the deadliest typhoons in the city’s history were Wanda in 1962, which claimed 130 lives with 53 people missing, and Typhoon Rose, which killed 110 people in 1971. Since then, Hong Kong has managed to survive many storms without major loss of life.
That the number of casualties has been reduced substantially is not down to luck but, rather, the hard work and diligent efforts of many. Sometimes, we do take things for granted. When Mangkhut hit the Philippines, it killed over 100 people. On the other side of the world, Hurricane Florence caused over 40 deaths in the US.
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