The Buildings Department has approved installation of a fibreglass wishing tree to replace a Chinese banyan that collapsed in the New Territories village of Lam Tsuen in 2005, injuring two people.
The artificial tree will be brought from Guangzhou by the end of the year. It is about seven metres high, 2.5 metres higher than a plastic tree used this Lunar New Year. The approval was given last month but the decision was only revealed yesterday.
As a part of Lunar New Year festivities, people used to throw offerings, messages or wishes attached to oranges into the Chinese banyan in Lam Tsuen, Tai Po, but the practice was stopped after the accident, in which an overburdened branch fell.
Tai Po district councillor Chan Cho-leung, who is responsible for the project, said: 'You won't be able to distinguish it from a real tree. We hope that it will be a new year gift to visitors coming at the Lunar New Year.'
The cost of buying and setting up the new wishing tree was about HK$300,000. The council also obtained a real, 11-metre-high banyan from Guangdong last year, as part of a tourism-revival plan involving building a 'wishing square'.
The branch that snapped off the old tree in 2005 broke the hip of Choi Kam-yin, then 65, who died this year, and also hit a four-year-old boy.