Hong Kong:
A runner was hailed as “Super Ironwoman” after she plunged into Hong Kong’s typhoon-whipped waters to save a drowning man, local media reported Thursday.
Louise Chow was jogging along the waterfront on Wednesday when she spotted dozens of people gathering to watch the attempted rescue of the man from Victoria Harbour, with waters churned by gusts of more than 100 kilometres an hour.
“I don’t know why I suddenly had such an urge to take off my shoes and socks, and then I dived in,” Chow, a diving coach, told Apple Daily in a video on their website.
Clutching a lifesaver, she grabbed the man and pulled him to land, with dramatic pictures in local media showing other rescuers helping to hoist him from the water.
The 24-year-old man, who had reportedly tried to commit suicide, was crying, video footage showed.
“He said, ‘I’m dying, I’m dying.... I have nothing now, I came to Hong Kong alone, I have nothing,” Chow, who stayed by the man’s side until emergency services arrived, said.
He was rushed to hospital where he was in a stable condition, media reported. Police said the man, reportedly from nearby Shenzhen, he had a record of mental illness.
Chow cut herself on an oyster shell and received medical treatment at the pier before resuming her three-kilometre run, The Standard newspaper said.
Witnesses dubbed her “Super Ironwoman”, the paper reported, adding that she played a part in a previous rescue in Hong Kong when novice divers got into trouble.
Typhoon Utor that had shut down business in the financial center of Hong Kong and sunk a cargo ship weakened into a tropical storm as it churned through southern China on Thursday.
Packing high winds and torrential rain, it had forced the closure of schools, offices, shopping centres and construction sites in cities along its path northwest across Guangdong province.
Yet only minor damage was reported, a result, state media said, of strict adherence to orders to confine tens of thousands of fishing boats to port and evacuate vulnerable people to shelters.
Thousands of travellers were stranded by the suspension of flights and ferry services, but no deaths or injuries were attributed to the storm.
By Thursday morning, the force of the storm had weakened considerably, with sustained winds at its centre falling to speeds of 85 kph (53 mph) as it headed northwest through Guangxi province, about 350 kilometres (215 miles) west of Hong Kong.
Life returned to normal in Hong Kong Thursday, a day after offices, schools and courts were shut and the stock market halted trading, bringing an eerie calm to the normally busy southern Chinese commercial hub.
Flights had been cancelled and ferry services curtailed while helicopter search and rescue teams from Hong Kong and Guangdong province rescued 21 crew members from a bulk carrier transporting nickel ore before it sank in waters southwest of Hong Kong
Utor was the world’s strongest typhoon of the year before it crossed the Philippines earlier this week, leaving at least eight people dead.
