Macau is best known as the gaming capital of the world, but dig down a little deeper and it is a city of resilience. How else could you explain the strength showed by its business leaders and citizens in dealing with a second devastating typhoon in as many years?
Macau has only felt the full force of a Signal 10 typhoon – the strongest possible – twice in the past 19 years yet both of those have come in the space of 13 short months. In August 2017, Typhoon Hato saw 10 people lose their lives and a damage bill totalling almost MOP$12 billion.
But rather than shrink away when it became apparent that another T10, Typhoon Mangkhut, was on its way this September, the community came together, braced itself for impact and emerged out the other side stronger than ever.
Typhoon Mangkhut again caused widespread flooding to some of Macau’s low-lying regions and forced for the first time ever the closure of all 42 casinos for 29 hours, but most importantly there was not a single fatality city-wide.
There is much more to the Macau people than meets the eye.
Ben Blaschke
Editor-in-Chief
