Hong Kong’s Shek O isolated from city for second time in a week after heavy rain shuts down sole access road for rural community
- Government says road will reopen at 9pm for light vehicles following emergency repairs
- Red rainstorm warning issued by Observatory at 5.55am forces suspension of classes at schools
Residents in Hong Kong’s Shek O were on Thursday morning cut off from the city for the second time in a week, after heavy rain shut down the only access road for the rural community.
Police closed Shek O Road as a sunken section from a landslide sparked by record rainfall last week further collapsed. The road reopened to light vehicles at around 9pm after repairs, according to the government.
Authorities were also aiming to allow all vehicles to pass through the damaged section of the road from 6am on Friday, including a single-decker bus used to take residents to and from the rest of the city.
As of noon, the road had been partially reopened for government vehicles and a red minibus route running between Shek O and Shau Kei Wan MTR station. But passengers were required to alight at the affected section and walk for about 100 metres (328 feet) before getting back on their minibus, with the vehicle crossing the area without load for safety.
The Drainage Services Department said as of 9am, it had received three flooding reports – at a roundabout on Chai Wan Road, Quarry Bay Street and a section of the Eastern Corridor near North Point Fire Station – but the floods eased shortly after.
The red rainstorm warning issued by the Observatory at 5.55am forced the suspension of all day classes at schools, with commuter travel disrupted by the weather during the morning rush hour. Authorities later announced that afternoon classes would resume.
Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin said the recent downpours and typhoons had wreaked havoc on 180 campuses but schools that were earlier forced to suspend classes could resume teaching on Friday after repair works were finished.
But cross-border students would still need to travel to Hong Kong via the Lok Ma Chau control point as the Man Kam To crossing remained closed.
The warning was downgraded to amber at 10.30am, which means rainfall has exceeded 30mm in an hour and is likely to continue. All rain alerts were lifted at 11.45am.
The Observatory said a trough of low pressure would bring heavy showers and thunderstorms to southern China and the northern part of the South China Sea on Thursday and Friday, with slight improvement in conditions expected early next week.
Yiu Hing Road, Shek O Road and Chung Hom Kok Road near Chung Hom Kok Park in Southern district were closed to traffic because of landslides, road subsidence, fallen trees and flooding. Citybus route No 9 between Shek O and Shau Kei Wan was suspended.
Earlier this week, Yiu Hing Road and Shek O Road were partially reopened after being blocked by floods and landslides triggered by the record rainfall last Thursday night. Damage at the latter resulted in the rural Shek O community being isolated from the rest of the city over the weekend.
The landslide that had crippled the only access road for Shek O was located near the starting point of the Dragon’s Back trail on Shek O Road.
On Thursday, Ceece Ip Ming-cee, 24, a fitness trainer living in Cape D’Aguilar said she woke up to heavy rain at 5.30am and was notified of the situation in her neighbourhood by a community WhatsApp group.
“Some people were trying to come in from Shau Kei Wan and some were trying to leave Shek O, but the roads were closed and minibuses were turning back,” Ip said.
She added that government personnel were seen laying concrete on eroded slopes and putting barriers on the road at around 7am.
“It was OK to drive through on one lane at one point, but then the rain washed away all the concrete,” she said, adding the flood was for a while ankle-deep on Shek O Road.
In Chai Wan, security guards at Wan Tsui Shopping Centre, which previously sustained heavy flood damage from last week’s historic storm, were on standby and had piled up sandbags and barricades.
A staff member told the Post that the particular wing at the mall had been shut off for repairs, but that there were no additional reports of flooding in the morning.
Outside, sections of the road were flooded around the shopping centre and estate, with about a dozen mall employees scrambling to unclog drains. Parts of a car park that had also been severely swamped last week also showed fresh signs of rain and mud.
Last Thursday night, a black rainstorm alert lasted more than 16 hours, with the city reporting its heaviest-ever hourly rainfall of 158.1mm since records began in 1884.
The downpour brought the city to a standstill as streets were turned into rivers, drivers were left stranded in cars, restaurants and railway stations flooded and landslides struck near residential estates. More than 140 people were sent to hospital, with a man killed after being washed away by floodwater.
