Report - Hong Kong West Drainage Tunnel, Apr '16

[drhowser]

I've been saying since before I moved here that Hong Kong must have some massive drains. It took a visit from Siologen and Snappel to actually get me off my arse and go and look at them.
This is of course sloppy seconds to those two, but I now also have custody of Silos map and will be continuing the good work.

The summer rainfall is nothing short of spectacular, the average for August is 445mm which will have fallen in a total of a few hours. Basically, this meant that the low lying areas of Hong Kong were getting so badly flooded each year that the government decided to spend 3bn dollars to fix the problem.
The answer was a total of about 20km of 8m diameter drains built using tunnel boring machines.

There's far more information here than I'm prepared to copy and paste, along with some cool animations of the construction process - http://www.dsd.gov.hk/others/HKWDT/eng/background.html

There is roughly a kilometre of the bored tunnel above until the first adit.

Unfortunately about here the guy accompanying me dropped his camera into a deeper section of water, meaning that we left in a hurry and didn't stop for any more shots.
This is only 1/20th lot the whole system, so hold tight for parts 2-80..
​

 

[Camera Shy]

I bet the flow would be spectacular during monsoon, plenty to go at there.

 

[paulpowers]

They look sexy

 

[pauln]

Another good report from HK. Looking forward to more

 

[m9]

Bang on.

 

[Paradox]

Nice that!

 

[pastybarm]

CCTV for inspection/monitoring the levels, or for catching graffiti artists? No graff in those drains, so just curious....looks a big system!

 

[Glow8]

CCTV for inspection/monitoring the levels, or for catching graffiti artists? No graff in those drains, so just curious....looks a big system!

People who live in HK are relatively well behaved & respectful and graffiti are rarely seen, even in run down / abandoned areas.

 

[pastybarm]

Used to live in HK, and visited the place on visa runs before going to China, and from China. Yes, there is less graffiti than in western countries,but I did see some in the new territories.

 

[drhowser]

Used to live in HK, and visited the place on visa runs before going to China, and from China. Yes, there is less graffiti than in western countries,but I did see some in the new territories.

Sorry, thought I'd replied before! I'm sure the camera is to monitor levels, there is a gauge in front of where it looks.

Re. Graffiti, I'm starting to see a lot more of it. Only in out of the way places so far, but definitely more than when I arrived.

 

[pastybarm]

Thanks for the reply, I did wonder if that was a gauge in front of the camera.