Super typhoon Meranti is upon us but seems that it will make landfall further up in China. Hong Kong was not so fortunate 110 years ago.
Here is a page from the diary of Gino Montecorvo, who witnessed that tragedy. Gino is one of the main characters of my book The Dew of Heaven already on sale at Bookazine.
I am enclosing the announcement for the official signing ceremony.
But it was not always smooth sailing. The first trouble to hit us was the great typhoon of 1906, which caused enormous damage to Hong Kong and Macau. The roof of our warehouse was torn off, and we lost a large quantity of fabric packed and ready for export. On September 18, at eight in the morning, the sky turned black in a matter of minutes and without warning. Nobody could have foreseen the furious winds which broke upon us, lifting and sinking several boats. The Anglican bishop Joseph Hoare and some of his priests were at sea fishing, and their bodies were never found. A French destroyer anchored in Hong Kong, the Fronde, was lifted and flung by a tsunami above the port.
I offered some money to raise a monument to the memory of those unlucky sailors. It is impossible to know the total number of dead, but it was certainly more than ten thousand. My workers and I lent a hand in the search for the bodies, countless children among them.