While the worst of the storm may have passed, Haikui’s impact lingers. A week after the typhoon made a landfall in Fujian province, southern China is still drenched by its slow-moving storm clouds.

In the autonomous region of Guangxi, people continue to battle flooding and landslides, which have claimed at least seven lives.

Authorities were caught by surprise because Doksuri appeared to deviate from previous storms – while typhoons do hit coastal areas hard on landfall, they tend not to go on to batter inland and northern provinces.

They predict that more typhoons will hit China, take more complex routes and affect more inland areas, making less-resilient areas exposed.

We are in an era of “suddenlies” – and China is not alone.

In another case of the “suddenlies”, 70,000 revellers gathering for the Burning Man festival in the US state of Nevada were stuck in the wet and mud for days late last month after more than two months’ worth of rain fell in that area in just 24 hours.

Of course, in some cases, official negligence or a slow response by the authorities worsens the toll.

After a massive wildfire raged through the Hawaiian oceanfront town of Lahaina last month, critics claimed that their concerns about the threat from invasive dry grass had been ignored.

And in July, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol blamed a botched response from the authorities for contributing to the deaths of more than 40 people in torrential rain, including a dozen found dead in a submerged underpass.

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More than 140 injured as Hong Kong faces ‘once-in-500 years’ downpour

More than 140 injured as Hong Kong faces ‘once-in-500 years’ downpour

As Hong Kong counts the cost of its own deadly disaster, questions are also being asked about the promptness of the official response in the city.

Some have suggested that the release of reservoir water in Shenzhen aggravated the flooding in Hong Kong – allegations the authorities reject.

While there is no reason to blame flooding in downtown Wong Tai Sin on Shenzhen’s release of water, villagers living in the border said their homes were flooded after the reservoir began to discharge water.

It was a similar situation in Hebei province last month, when residents said the release of water from Beijing caused flooding in parts of the province.

Although it is unfair to attribute the damage to any one action, the cases point to the urgent need to review the resilience and preparedness of different localities.

Whether it is urban or rural, in Hong Kong or mainland China, or in other parts of the world, we have to be prepared for new weather patterns.

And in the case of Hong Kong, if the government wants to build a hi-tech zone near the border, it has to make sure the area can stay high and dry when Shenzhen has to ease pressure on its reservoirs.