The Deadly Midget Typhoon

On the evening of September 17, 1906, the population of Hong Kong went to bed, unaware that less than 24 hours later, 5% of the city’s population would be killed in a devastating typhoon. The storm would later be known as the Bingwu Typhoon—named after the "Bingwu" year in the Chinese sexagenary cycle—or the 1906 Hong Kong Typhoon, one of the deadliest in the city's history.

At the time, the Royal Hong Kong Observatory (now the Hong Kong Observatory) relied heavily on telegraph warnings from other regional stations to alert the population to incoming storms. However, due to the unique nature of the Bingwu Typhoon, it reached Hong Kong entirely unnoticed.

Indeed, the Bingwu Typhoon was physically very compact, with a maximum wind radius of just 11 kilometres or less. Because it travelled through the Bashi Channel—between Taiwan and the Philippine island of Luzon—and never made landfall before hitting Hong Kong, its approach remained completely hidden from the Hong Kong Observatory until it was less than 30 kilometres away from the city, giving residents barely 30 minutes of warning.

At 8:00 am on September 18, 1906, the Bingwu Typhoon made landfall, coming from due east at a forward speed of 38 km/h (23.6 mph) and slicing through Victoria Harbour. Roughly 3,000 ships anchored in the harbour were damaged, and an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 lives were lost that day. As of 2026, the 1906 Hong Kong Typhoon remains the second-deadliest natural disaster in the city's history, behind only the Great Hong Kong Typhoon of 1937.