- Ye Jingsi
- BBC Chinese reporter from Hong Kong
Image source,AFP
When it comes to typhoons and torrential rains, Hong Kong has experienced many battles.
Zhengzhou, the capital of China’s Henan province, experienced heavy rains, triggering large-scale floods that shocked the country, causing serious casualties. Many residential areas were cut off from water and electricity, and residents had to search for bottled water, dry food and other emergency situations.
Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, requires all government departments to strengthen overall planning and coordination, strengthen inspections and elimination of hidden hazards, strengthen the safety protection of important infrastructure, and improve the level of early warning and forecasting of rainfall, typhoons, mountain torrents, and mudslides. At the same time, there was a heated debate among the people as to who was responsible for such a major disaster, and whether the rainstorm was really the “highest rainfall in history” as the ruling party’s propaganda agency claimed. Some people also questioned whether the construction of the local “sponge city” has been fulfilled. .
There are also netizens who try to learn from other cities’ management responses to floods. Hong Kong, Copenhagen, Denmark, and New York are all hotly discussed cases.
Is Hong Kong so worth learning from?
Flooding in Henan: The victims lost their homes overnight and cried bitterly “there is no home, nothing is gone”
The lesson of blood, the crystallization of sweat
After the news of the Zhengzhou flood caused casualties on July 20, many Chinese netizens began to discuss where they can learn from disaster forecasting and emergency response mechanisms to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Hong Kong is one of the cities mentioned and has quite advanced experience.
Hong Kong is undoubtedly a coastal city at the forefront of typhoons in South China. The British formally occupied Hong Kong in January 1841, and the Royal Hong Kong Observatory was established in 1883 to take charge of weather forecasting. Since record, the worst typhoon disaster in Hong Kong was Typhoon Wanda in 1962, which caused 183 deaths or disappearances. The rain disaster was the “6.18 rain disaster” in 1972, with more than 130 deaths.
The typhoon warning system in Hong Kong was established as early as the end of April 1930 by the resolution of the “Far East Meteorological Service Director Seminar” convened by the Royal Hong Kong Observatory. After years of evolution, it is divided into five levels 1, 3, 8, 9, and 10, commonly known as ” Once the typhoon signal No. 8 is issued, most activities in the city have basically stopped, and residents should stay at home to take shelter.
However, the rainstorm warning signal for heavy rain was not until May 8, 1992, when a rainstorm that killed four people, triggered the British Hong Kong government to formulate a yellow, red, and black rainstorm warning signal for the general public.
In response to typhoons, rainstorms and other weather warning signals, the Hong Kong Security Bureau has also formulated the “Natural Disaster Response Plan”, which covers the roles and responsibilities of government departments and public utilities from pre-disaster preparations, response during disasters to post-disaster aftermath. Specify clearly.
The early warning procedure for a typhoon is usually advanced as follows: a tropical cyclone is approaching, and the observatory is scheduled to switch from the strong wind signal No. 3 to the No. 8 gale or storm signal. Generally, a notice will be issued through the media two hours in advance. If you are going to work , To go to school, business employers must follow the government guidelines and negotiate in advance to let employees off work one after another, and the school will also start arranging the end of school.
At the same time, all franchised bus companies, MTR and passenger ferry companies will work overtime to evacuate. In particular, passenger ferry companies will successively announce the last ferry times for inner routes (crossing Victoria Harbour) and outer routes (to and from outlying islands). After the typhoon signal No. 8 was issued, the ferry service was the first to stop. Depending on the passenger flow and road conditions of different routes, the bus company announced the suspension or maintenance of “limited service”, and trams would also be suspended. The MTR generally maintains service for a period of time, and then gradually reduces its schedules and speeds. However, it usually maintains full service except for the New Territories West Light Rail.
At this time, the roles of radio and television stations are very important. Before there was a 24-hour news station, each TV station would broadcast storm news at least once an hour, and continuously broadcast traffic information, the latest storm disaster and other news. The radio station switched to typhoon broadcasting mode from the typhoon signal No. 8, continuously broadcasting similar information, and broadcasting the Observatory’s storm news every 15 minutes. The vast majority of citizens have already returned home by this time.
If the escalation issues the No. 9 gale or enhanced storm signal, or even the highest No. 10 hurricane signal, the MTR will immediately suspend non-underground sections, but the underground sections will still operate until the last train of the day.
When the typhoon is far away from Hong Kong, the typhoon signal drops to No. 8, and before the Observatory prepares to further downgrade to No. 3, it will usually be announced two hours in advance through media such as radio, television and the Internet to allow public transportation agencies to begin preparations. If typhoon signal No. 3 is re-issued, the market will stage a busier commuting scene than the usual peak, but at this time, buses, MTR, etc. are already in place.
Compared with the typhoon signal, under the black rainstorm signal, suspension of work or class is not directly announced, but government guidelines require employees to find a safe place to hide. If they have not gone out, they should not go to work, and they should stay indoors if they have already gone to work. Public transportation and broadcasting organizations generally operate normally.
But the school system and bank financial system suspension arrangements can help reduce the number of commuters. The Education Bureau of the Special Administrative Region Government has generally issued a suspension order before the typhoon signal No. 8 is issued. Unless the typhoon signal No. 8 is replaced by the No. 3 typhoon signal before 05:30, the suspension will continue; if the No. 3 typhoon signal is further replaced by the No. 1 alert signal , Or even cancel all signals, the school resumes classes in the afternoon.
The Hong Kong Association of Banks has a clear policy that if Typhoon Signal No. 8 or Black Rainstorm Warning is removed before 12:00, banks will open for business within two hours if circumstances permit. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange stipulates that if Typhoon Signal No. 8 or The black rainstorm warning is removed between 09:00 and 11:00, and the Hong Kong stock market will resume trading at 13:00. If it is removed between 11:30 and 12:00, the stock market will resume at 14:00.
In 2018, the super typhoon Mangkhut hit Hong Kong without causing serious casualties, but the market suffered severe damage. After the typhoon signal No. 8 was lifted, a large number of citizens hurried to work and school as usual, but found that the road and railway traffic were still paralyzed due to falling trees and other reasons. . The SAR government then set up a new “extreme situation” declaration in order to avoid confusion in the market after the “typhoon” is lifted.
Obviously, rainstorm signals alone are not enough. From the British rule to the establishment of the SAR, various channel straightening, river straightening in the New Territories, to the giant rainwater tunnel project in the western part of Hong Kong Island, all helped to discharge surface floods underground and reduce the threat of flooding.
Flood in Henan: BBC reporters arrived in Zhengzhou and chatted with the local people about their current situation
Disaster prevention and relief in Hong Kong: effective and automatic
Luo Xintang is the director of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Disaster Prevention and Response Education and Research Center. The center was established in 2014 and is affiliated to the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, with the purpose of “promoting the ability of communities to resist disasters and building Hong Kong’s leadership in disaster prevention and response training in the region and internationally”.
Before taking office as the director in March 2020, Luo Xintang had just retired from the post of Senior Assistant Chief Ambulance Officer of the Fire Services Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. He is a well-trained disaster rescuer. He was also seconded to the Security Bureau of the Special Administrative Region Government to participate in the revision of various contingency plans. He said he could not comment on whether the Zhengzhou flood was insufficiently prepared in advance, but said: “From the report, the rainfall in Zhengzhou that day was 201.9 millimeters, which is almost three times that of Hong Kong’s “black rain”-we only had 70 millimeters. A black rainstorm warning signal must be issued.”
Luo Xintang told a BBC Chinese reporter, “Can such rainfall fall in Hong Kong, can it be dealt with with Hong Kong’s current facilities? I dare not say, but what Hong Kong has always prepared is the situation of’high severity’ and’high frequency’. “It means that the risk of heavy rains for Hong Kong is relatively high, and the density of heavy rains in Hong Kong is also high.
“Even if the situation is extremely rare, it doesn’t mean that nothing can be done or nothing needs to be done, but some countermeasures can be formulated.”
Luo Xintang explained to the BBC Chinese reporter that to make a risk assessment for a certain disaster, we must first look at the seriousness of the consequences of the event and the frequency of the incident. The two risk coefficients are multiplied to get the level of risk, and then based on “4T” principles to formulate risk management plans:
- Termination-such as arranging to stop working under heavy rain
- Transfer-refer risks, such as pre-purchasing insurance
- Treatment-Take fire as an example, to check whether the building’s fire sprinklers are working effectively
- Tolerate-the technology to suppress risks does not yet exist, or the investment of resources is extremely large, then make a contingency plan, just in case
Applying this principle to Hong Kong itself is a weather warning system from generation to generation.
The flood in Zhengzhou caused most public criticism and doubts for the flooding of the Zhengzhou Metro Line 5 and Jingguang Road tunnels. Official data show that at least 12 people have died in the subway flood accident that day. The MTR Corporation (MTR), which also operates a subway system in mainland China, was immediately asked by the media what protective measures its Hong Kong railway system has.
The MTR Corporation told the media that the company has “a series of preventive measures” to deal with the severe weather that may occur in Hong Kong, including inspections of flood control equipment and railway facilities before the typhoon and rainy season approach each year, and contingency plans to deal with unexpected situations caused by the weather. .
The Kowloon-Canton Railway, which was built in 1910, was destroyed by heavy rains in 1931, causing trains to derail, causing 12 deaths and 20 injuries. Since the opening of the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway in 1979, the “two railways merged” into MTR in December 2007 So far, although there have been occasional flooding of underground stations due to rupture of water pipes and other factors, there has never been a flooding fatal accident.
Luo Xintang said that for any response system to be automatically put in place when something is wrong, it requires the government to run-in with the citizens. This also involves the early warning system itself, as well as the coordination and communication of different departments, and more importantly, holding exercises from time to time, even if it is a sand table exercise. , Find out the insufficiency or outdated part of the contingency plan itself, and update it.
According to historical reports and information on railway enthusiasts’ websites, the MTR will test the flood gates located at both ends of the submarine tunnel on each cross-sea route at least every 10 years to ensure that the submarine tunnel will not be flooded for any reason and will not affect both sides of the Victoria Harbour. Tunnel and station.
A flood gate test recorded by the MTR staff organization (2011)
In recent years, there have also been incidents in which a large number of passengers have been stranded in the station for refuge due to typhoons, and complaints about insufficient supplies have occurred. According to information on the MTR’s official website, each station has a “typhoon shift” staff on duty during the typhoon period to take care of passengers and prepare 30,000 packs of biscuits and bottled water for emergency.
No matter how good the system is, don’t forget to save yourself
Luo Xintang pointed out to the BBC Chinese reporter that according to a poll conducted by the Education and Research Center after Typhoon Mangosteen hit, as many as 60% of Hong Kong citizens surveyed were not prepared for disaster prevention. This is because Hong Kong’s disaster prevention system is still flawed. One of them.
He said that effective response to natural disasters involves three aspects: self-help, mutual assistance and cooperation with the government. Hong Kong people’s awareness of self-help is not low, but Taiwan, Japan and other places have successively implemented community-based disaster relief preparations with mutual assistance among neighbors. In terms of cooperating with the government, taking some low-lying rural areas in the New Territories of Hong Kong as an example, rescuers will specially come to the scene to arrange evacuation and avoid disasters, and coordinately deal with various situations that occur when villagers are unwilling to cooperate with leaving home.
Luo Xintang, for example, said that families should store emergency food and water for three days daily for long-term storage, and they should also have “escape packages” for evacuation at any time.
He sighed that when the climate change problem is so obvious today, personal disaster prevention and crisis awareness are very important.
“If in the process, everyone has a sense of crisis and takes action before they hear the warning, it will have reduced one person’s casualties. Even if he does not understand disaster assessment, he knows how to cooperate as soon as he hears the warning. One less casualty. If you can do these two steps well, maybe there will be zero casualties.”