Typhoon Hato: Hong Kong issues highest warning, halts trading

Hong Kong upgraded the storm warning to the highest for the first time in five years and cancelled its stock exchange morning trading session as Severe Typhoon Hato drew closer to the financial centre.

A man holds onto a lamp post against strong wind
as Typhoon Hato hits Hong Kong on Wednesday.

Hundreds of flights have been cancelled and schools and most businesses in the Asian financial hub closed.

Streets were largely deserted on Wednesday as winds intensified and rain lashed down, with many skyscrapers in the heart of the financial centre in darkness as the city battened down for one of the worst storms in years.

Hato churned up water in the iconic Victoria Harbour and triggered large swells and massive waves on some of the city's most popular beaches, with the weather observatory warning of serious flooding in low-lying areas.

Read the Melbourne Age story - “Typhoon Hato: Hong Kong issues highest warning, halts trading.”

As climate change increases, floating cities look like less of a dream

An artist's impression of a floating island
 project in French Polynesia.

Hong Kong: You might call it a Noah's Ark for an era of melting polar ice sheets.

An audacious plan to respond to climate change by building a city of floating islands in the South Pacific is moving forward, with the government of French Polynesia agreeing to consider hosting the islands in a tropical lagoon.

The project is being put forward by a California non-profit, the Seasteading Institute, which has raised about $US2.5 million from more than 1000 interested donors. Randolph Hencken, the group's executive director, said work on the project could start in French Polynesia as early as next year, pending the results of some environmental and economic feasibility studies.

"We have a vision that we're going to create an industry that provides floating islands to people who are threatened by rising sea levels," Hencken said.

Read the story in today’s Melbourne Age by Mike Ives - “As climate change increases, floating cities look like less of a dream.”

(The idea of floating cities probably warrants applause, but it is about treating the symptoms rather than focussing on the cause of climate change. The human intuition, initiative and resources should be expended attending to the human behaviour that worsens climate change and not addressing to the damage caused by our inappropriate actions. Floating cities are about us acquiescing to our failures – that is, admitting that the implications and complications of climate change is a problem outside our control and creating floating cities might answer on aspect of this wicked problem, but pay no heed to any other – Robert McLean)