It was mid-morning on Wednesday, August 23, when Typhoon Hato violently hit Macau, creating dreadful havoc for anything in its path. Almost all the areas in the peninsula and islands were significantly affected, leaving some injured, some dead, and a trail of destruction reaching an amount hard to comprehend. Houses to road vehicles, from public to private facilities, as well as schools, hospitals and heritage sites all suffered severe damage that go beyond what the eye can see.
But that is the story that has now many times been told, and is one of many others that rise from the mix of debris, dirty water, and domestic waste that accumulated in the pungent streets.
However, there are also others worth sharing; stories of solidarity, strangers helping strangers, love and care; stories of humans, and of great humanity.
As soon as the waters lowered to the sidewalk level, the staff from Café Kam Ma Lon located at Rua dos Mercadores, one of the streets formerly submerged in one meter of water, started to put their hands to work, cleaning the coffee shop. In less than two hours, it was reopened and back to “business as usual,” without one single whine uttered by the workers.
A few meters further down the alley, a resident who owns a egg distribution business had finally come out to open the gate of his storage shed to find nothing but mud and destroyed goods, along with a flooded motorcycle that he used for the distribution.
Scratching his head the man, who was over 60-years-old, whispered to himself in Cantonese “It’s OK.” Passing by were some neighbors who asked how things were, while lending a hand to pull some of the items piled by the entrance out into the alley.
By the end of the same day, the egg distributor was already riding another motorbike borrowed off a friend and modified on the spot, to restart egg distribution.
In the same alley, many neighbors were seen entering each other’s houses with brooms and mops, and buckets filled with water borrowed from fire hydrants, as the area did not have any water or electricity supply at that time or during the days that followed.
At the same time, information started to appear on social network platforms about people both in need and offering help, and groups of volunteers were starting to gather and discuss where to go to lend a hand.
In the Inner Harbor area, one of the areas most affected by the flooding, fire service trucks were trying to make their way into the alleys to reach the calls for help of the people trapped inside shops. They would not have arrived in time had it not been for the locals that helped out. Groups of men spontaneously gathered around flooded cars that were blocking the streets and pulled them by hand to the sides of the streets, allowing the rescuers enough room to pass. The same was happening in many other places across town.
In the following days the number of volunteers boomed, whether it was in association with company-organized groups or even individual and through spontaneous actions, people from all nationalities, locals and tourists alike, were seen helping each other with all they could. Groups of students from local secondary and tertiary education were in great number and in good spirits side-by-side with soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army that were deployed in several areas of the city.
In the corner of the Rua dos Faitiões and Rua do Tarrafeiro, also in the Inner Harbor area, a local bakery was in the street distributing bread and cakes to passers-by, specifically to elderlies. Not far away another group, organized under Macau Red Cross and local neighborhood associations, was distributing bottled water house-by-house, knocking on doors to offer help.
Among neighbors the solidarity was also present. Within communication apps, conversation groups were created to discuss issues among the condominiums and to distribute tasks. Returning from work in local hotels, some carried home small water bottles, leaving them behind at neighbors’ doorsteps as they made their way up the stairwell.
As water and electric supplies were still not available for a good number of people, help from others, those more fortunate, was being offered all across social networks; a place to shower, drinking water, food and even a place to sleep were widely offered to all those in need.
With bottled water out of stock in most of the supermarkets and convenience stores and some shop owners taking advantage of the situation to sell bottled water for as much as MOP150, some local restaurants turned to Facebook to inform the public they had stock of the liquid to be sold at regular prices, or even to give away to those in extreme need. The same happened with food, with several stores announcing the give-away of food boxes, restoring the hopes of many in despair, and restoring faith in shopowners doing the right thing.
Faith was restored in a sector that has been on many occasions addressed as a great example of greed and “unlawful behavior,” with taxi drivers from both companies being seen throughout those days offering free cab rides for the stranded, while other logistic professionals were also seen offering transportation for flooded motorbikes to a safe or fixing location.
The work of all of these volunteers and authorities was also boosted by some local companies that offered their staff equipment such as trucks, water pumps, electric generators and heavy machines to help on the task of cleaning the streets. They also contributed to the reestablishment of basic services and utilities.
As the days go by, and basic cleaning and fixing gets close to completion, the calls for help get less frequent. However, we all still need to go out on the street and continue the good examples of providing a helping hand to fix Macau, as soon as possible.
Supermarket prices stable despite large demand
After Typhoon Hato left several supermarkets and convenience stores with almost no bottled water for sale, some stores took advantage of the shortfall in supply, selling drinking water at inflated prices.
Until Friday, many residents were still struggling to find distilled water, while some were charged at least double the standard price in a few small stores.
Michael Lio, general manager of Supermercado Seng Cheong, which currently operates three groceries in the city, told the Times that supermarkets should practice social responsibility and not take advantage of residents in times of calamity.
“We’ve been in the business for over 50 years [and] it is not good to take advantage of people who are in need. […] Actually in Macau this is illegal,” said Lio.
“[If] we’re raising the price when everyone is in need of water and food, it’s not good for Macau,” he added.
Supermercado Seng Cheong is one of the many groceries in the city who encountered difficulties in the supply of products – particularly during the first two days – due to logistic issues, in addition to many other traders, who also had their premises flooded.
Reader’s corner
Remembering Typhoon Hato
A leap-day’s morning after,
The typhoon’s touches still remain:
Uptorn trees, a tangled mess of branches
Like shorn Medusa’s hair,
Carelessly swept aside
From the visage of streets.
Normally, typhoons clean things, but this one
Has left dark glaciers of mud.
Grim-grinning he hacked through windowpanes
Shattered like raining hail.
Most of our local typhoons are benign,
But he drew blood and tears.
Now in our homes, no running water.
Dreamily I buy up Fanta and Coke.
I can drink but I cannot shower.
I shudder to remember
Hato’s hateful incursion
Into our lives.
Joanna Radwańska-Williams
Macao, 25th August, 2017
