Come hell or high water

Most Hong Kong residents had an unearned holiday on Wednesday as Typhoon Hato - the city's second Signal No 10 tempest in five years - whistled in like an angry beast, venting its rage on the roads, parks and apartment blocks along Hong Kong's coastline.

The Hong Kong Observatory issued elaborate guidelines urging people to stay indoors until the storm blew itself out but the prospect of injury wasn't enough to keep the intrepid experience hunters at home. Out they came wearing their plastic overalls and hoodies, eager it seemed to take the lashings of nature's fury on the chin.

Our team of photographers was out too, seeking out the locations where Typhoon Hato had struck most ruthlessly. Trees were falling like ninepins (nearly 700 cases were reported) and more than 120 people sought medical assistance but China Daily Hong Kong's team of ace lensmen braved the extreme weather conditions to bring our readers some of the most poignant images of a day when disaster struck but did little to undermine the famed resilience of the city's people.

Be it the image of workers removing cartloads of broken branches that fell on an arterial road in Tsim Sha Tsui, or the solitary figure wading across the expansive stretch of knee-deep water in Heng Fa Chuen or the woman enjoying the embrace of the waves crashing over the seawall as her companion captures the moment on his camera, they all point toward a truth about this city that has been reiterated several times and yet will lend itself to more re-telling.

Come hell or high water, there's no putting down the Hong Kong spirit.

basu@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 08/24/2017 page7)