Extreme-weather body tasked with improving Hong Kong’s typhoon-response work

City leader John Lee asks committee to evaluate experiences from Super Typhoon Rasaga, make improvements

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Super Typhoon Ragasa struck Hong Kong last week, bringing the city to a standstill. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 12:48pm, 30 Sep 2025Updated: 7:46pm, 30 Sep 2025

Hong Kong’s leader has tasked a government steering committee on handling extreme weather with improving infrastructure and facilities in storm-vulnerable areas after the city was brought to a standstill by Super Typhoon Ragasa last week.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said on Tuesday that the government had managed to minimise the damage caused by Ragasa and recover swiftly, allowing business activities to resume last Wednesday night and society to largely return to normal the next day.

Lee said he had asked the steering committee, led by Chief Secretary Eric Chan Kwok-ki, to evaluate experiences from the storm and make improvements.

“It will systematise and institutionalise our successful experiences to continuously enhance the ability of the government and society to respond,” he said before a meeting with the Executive Council, the city’s top decision-making body.

“We will also study areas to refine our prevention and response, including optimising basic works, facilities and equipment in areas frequently threatened by typhoons, to better cope with various extreme weather events in the future and protect Hong Kong.”

Ragasa triggered the highest-level No 10 typhoon warning signal for nearly 11 hours last Wednesday. Coastal locations, including restaurants along a Tseung Kwan O promenade and the Fullerton Ocean Park Hotel in Aberdeen, were among those hit by flooding.

Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho said on Saturday that the government would learn from the experience and review coastal facilities, adding that a planned flood wall in Tseung Kwan O and a breakwater in Aberdeen could improve the situation.

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