Rude awakening as Hong Kong Island bears brunt of overnight floods and landslides

Hong Kong woke to floods and landslides yesterday as a five-hour burst of torrential rain caught residents largely unaware.

People went to bed on Wednesday night to forecasts of heavy but scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms. But by last night there had been 184 incidents of flooding and 54 landslides recorded as heavy rain swept the territory.

An Observatory forecaster said that they could see which way the rain belt was heading in the hours running up to the storm, but had no way of knowing how heavy the rainfall would be.

Senior scientific officer Cheung Cho-ming said: 'Rainfall can change dramatically in a few minutes due to other factors. It can get heavier or lighter very quickly.'

The amber rainstorm warning was hoisted at 12.25am yesterday when precipitation passed the 50mm-an-hour mark. The downpour worsened at 1.36am when the Observatory put up the red rainstorm warning. The black rainstorm signal was hoisted at 3.05am when more than 70mm of rainfall was recorded. All signals were cancelled around 6am.

Most damage occurred on Hong Kong Island, where 44 floods and 18 landslides were reported.