Hong Kong stayed largely closed Monday morning, with stock market trading halted and schools suspended, as gale force winds and torrential rain from departing Typhoon Koinu continued to affect the finance hub.
The Hong Kong Observatory said the No. 8 storm warning — the third-highest — would remain in place until 11:40 a.m. That alert replaced the more serious No. 9 signal, which lasted for almost five hours on Sunday night. The weather agency also issued its highest black rainstorm warning at 4 a.m. on Monday.
Trading on the city’s $4.8 trillion stock market will resume at 2 p.m. if the No. 8 signal is lowered between 11:30 a.m. and midday, under the exchange operator’s rules. That’s provided the black rainstorm warning is also dropped by then. The disruption comes as mainland China’s stock markets reopen for the first time this month after the Golden Week holidays and traders react to the Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Koinu was centered about 120 km (75 miles) west-southwest of the city at 8 a.m. and was forecast to move west at about 10 km per hour across the coast of Guangdong province. It was the second typhoon to hit Hong Kong since the start of September, while the remnants of a third a month ago brought record-breaking rain that flooded parts of the finance hub and triggered landslides.
The latest typhoon dumped more than 250 mm of rain over Hong Kong island and eastern Kowloon since midnight. The black rainstorm warning means rain exceeding 70 mm is falling in an hour.
Hundreds of passengers at the city’s airport were stranded on Sunday night after the raising of the No. 9 signal caused rail operator MTR Corp. to halt train services between the airport and the city. The service later resumed in limited fashion. Under the No. 8 warning, most public transport is suspended and workers typically stay home. The black rainstorm warning has a similar impact.
While an average of six typhoons come within 500 km of Hong Kong every year, it’s rare for a tropical cyclone to directly threaten the city, let alone two. The last time Hong Kong issued the No. 9 signal for two different typhoons in the same year was in 1999, when the finance hub was hit by Maggie and York. Before that, it was 1964, when Ruby and Dot slammed the British colony.
Koinu, which means puppy in Japanese, repeatedly defied forecaster predictions after earlier brushing past the southern tip of Taiwan. Despite projections by regional observatories that the storm would weaken, Koinu rebuilt its eyewall and regained strength as it headed to Hong Kong. It’s currently forecast to move toward China’s Hainan as a severe tropical storm.
--With assistance from Tania Chen and Shiyin Chen.
(Updates with latest from Observatory from fourth paragraph.)
