ON January 7, you ran a story about the new airport site at Chek Lap Kok headlined, 'Safety rules flouted on airport site'. I would like to explain why this is not the case.
We undertook, as your story reported, to follow up on your question about workers not wearing hard hats. We have since confirmed that the worker photographed was, in fact, wearing a shaded brim around his mandatory safety helmet.
As reporters at the site noted, enforcement of safety regulations is strict. We are committed to doing all we can to achieve the highest standards of safety at what is rapidly becoming one of the world's largest and busiest construction sites.
The story also mentioned that drivers of very large trucks were not wearing safety helmets. In fact, good safety practice does not require these drivers to wear helmets whilst inside their cabs. This is identical to the situation in, for instance, the very large Australian open mines, which Chek Lap Kok at its present stage of work resembles. This also reflects the fact that the level of structural safety designed into our very large trucks is of course different from that built into ordinary civilian vehicles.
The fact is that no accident is acceptable and we and our contractors are making every effort to inculcate and maintain a strong culture of safety. The reportable accident rate at Chek Lap Kok is 62 accidents per thousand workers per year - compared with the average for Hong Kong's construction industry of about 295 per year.
We and our contractors must never be complacent about safety. We are working to ensure the accident frequency rate is as low as possible.
