Hong Kong simply has not developed the right mindset with respect to fire safety. Unless prompt, effective action is taken, we could be looking at more tragedies like the Wang Fuk Court disaster in Tai Po. The numbers are stark and overwhelming, yet the context from which they have been derived is even more frightening. In January and February this year, the Fire Services Department inspected some 1,500 residential and mixed-use buildings planned at least 39 years ago. The exercise resulted in...
Veteran industrialist Sunny Chai Ngai-chiu has been appointed as chairman of a government-owned company set to be tasked with developing Hong Kong’s San Tin Technopole – a key pillar of the Northern Metropolis megaproject. Authorities said on Wednesday that the San Tin Technopole Company would be established in the first half of 2026 and that Chai would start his three-year term as the head of the new firm’s board of directors on July 1. His tenure as chairman of the Hong Kong Science and...
A 68-year-old construction worker is in critical condition after being struck by an electric chain hoist at a Hong Kong government site undergoing drainage replacement works on Wednesday morning. The site on Yen Chow Street in Sham Shui Po is part of the government’s drainage pipe replacement project that spans from Tsuen Wan to West Kowloon. The project is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Police said they received a report from the site at 8.30am. One of the victim’s colleagues...
Slowly but surely, Hong Kong is undergoing various scales of transformation. From the mixed-use development around Kai Tak to the revamped waterfronts on both sides of Victoria Harbour, the new railway extensions to the vehicular bypass tunnels below our busy streets, the adaptive reuse of underutilised spaces and the infusion of art and culture into local neighbourhoods, our city is evolving and adapting. Consider the East Coast Boardwalk as an example. The space under the Island Eastern...
In the global shift towards carbon-neutral mobility, a striking role reversal is taking shape on the pavements of the world’s most populous cities. While geopolitical analysts focus on the high-altitude rhetoric of the Xi-Trump summit in Beijing, a more profound urban reality is unfolding at eye level. Broadcasting live from a teeming Beijing intersection, Fox News anchor Bret Baier recently captured this fascinating counter-narrative. Away from the grandeur of diplomacy, a small revolution is...
A woman was killed and another left unconscious after a Hong Kong taxi driver in his seventies lost control of his vehicle and drove onto a pavement in Ngau Tau Kok on Wednesday, police said. The driver and his two passengers were also hurt. Police said the taxi veered onto a pedestrian walkway at about 1.50pm on Choi Ha Road near Chun Wah Road before crashing into a concrete planter in a nearby sitting-out area. Two women in their thirties were struck by the taxi and left unconscious. They were...