About two dozen people went for protection from the current cold snap to the winter shelter yesterday as the mercury plunged from 18 degrees Celsius in the morning to 10 degrees in the afternoon and just around 8 degrees Celsius in the evening.

The chief of the Social Affairs Bureau’s (IAS) Public Relations and Media Division, Catherine Lee Kuai Heng, told The Macau Post Daily yesterday that 25 people stayed at the winter shelter in Ilha Verde as of 9:43 p.m. They were all Macau citizens, comprising 19 men and six women.

An IAS statement yesterday said that while the winter shelter provides people with blankets and free food and drinks, social workers would visit different districts to look for homeless people and provide them with some cold weather essentials.

The statement also said that the bureau has informed different social service centres to pay more attention to the health of senior citizens and people with chronic illnesses as the weather changes, and to take extra precautions.

A warning by the Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau (SMG) on its website last night stated that as an intense winter monsoon has reached the nation’s southern coastal areas, the northerly winds in Macau are intensifying and the temperature is dropping significantly. It will be rainy and very cold with the minimum temperature around 6 degrees early this week.

At 1:40 a.m. today, the temperature stood at 7.5 degrees on Big Taipa Hill, 8.3 degrees in Ka Ho and 8.8 degrees at the Maritime Museum, according to data supplied by the observatory’s various weather monitoring stations. Relative humidity amounted to between 85 percent (University of Macau) and 99 percent (Ka Ho).

This photo taken yesterday shows a general view of the winter shelter in Ilha Verde. Photo: Iong Tat Choi

PLEASE READ THE FULL ARTICLE IN OUR PRINT EDITION.