Record tropical rainfall doused Hong Kong [WikiPedia | CIA Factbook | Google Map] Saturday. A subscription site on Google News indicated that two people were killed by a landslide. More information is available from the Shanghai Daily website, which has an additional photo.
PHOTO CAPTION: A taxi parks at the flood water at downtown, in Hong Kong, Saturday, June 7, 2008. Heavy rains unleashed flooding and landslides early Saturday in Hong Kong, shutting down roads and air traffic throughout the territory, officials said. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
NASA's TRMM rainfall measurement graphic in Google Earth showed heavy rainfall over the entire area:
The Hong Kong government website gave the details:
Saturday's squalls saw more than 145mm (5.71 inches)* of rain dumped on Hong Kong from 8 to 9am, the highest hourly rainfall since records began, the Hong Kong Observatory says. From midnight until 6pm June 7, 304.8mm (12 inches) of rain fell at the Observatory, the 5th highest daily rainfall recorded in June. About 200mm were recorded generally over Hong Kong with Lantau Island and urban areas exceeding 300mm. The Hong Kong Observatory issued the amber rainstorm warning at 5.15am and replaced it with the red one at 5.55am. The black one was issued at 6.40am... Up to 7pm today 539 flooding reports were recorded - 240 on Hong Kong Island, 220 in Kowloon and 79 in the New Territories. Thirty-nine landslides have been reported.
PHOTO CAPTION: Two women walk through a flooded street in Hong Kong, Saturday, June 7, 2008. Heavy rains unleashed flooding and landslides early Saturday in Hong Kong, shutting down roads and air traffic throughout the territory, officials said. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
*As amazing as this is, the first edition of "Extreme Weather" indicates that the world record for a 1-hour rainfall is 15.78" in China.
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What we witnessed Saturday last will be nothing compared with the onslaught of a super-typhoon and associated storm surge. It's not if either, it's when. That sort of phenomenon would overwhelm HK just as Katrina overwhelmed the resourses of the US.
Yah, this is the HKSAR - special administrative region - bottom line is it's China - as the Man said.
Posted by C J | June 10, 2008 10:59 AM
Jesse -
You may wish to note (and correct) that Hong Kong is not a "tiny country," and never has been an independent entity. It is (notice this in the CIA World Factbook site to which you link) a special administrative entity which is part of China, and was previously an overseas dependency of the United Kingdom.
In other words, Hong Kong isn't a country -- it's in China.
FROM JESSE: Duly noted, all references to potentially political descriptions have been removed.
Posted by Zandt | June 9, 2008 11:44 AM