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Arthur Hacker

'THE burned and mutilated bodies of 136 people are today lying in Hong Kong mortuary, while 25 were taken to hospital and many are still unaccounted for, as a result of one of the worst fire tragedies the colony has ever known,' wrote the China Mail.

  On February 4, 1947, the steamer SS Sai On, was consumed by fire.

  The ship was not even at sea; it burned at its moorings alongside the dock at Connaught Road Central.

  The final death count was 149.

  Just before the ship was due to sail at 5 am smoke was seen belching from the front hold.

   The fire spread quickly. A lucky survivor was 64-year-old Lau Wai-chau. She had been suffering from insomnia.

   Instead of lying asleep in her cabin, she was sitting on a staircase leading to the deck when she heard someone shout 'fire'.

  'I rushed to the deck and threw myself into the sea after seeing no way to escape,' she said.

   'That's the one time I was glad I was unable to sleep with so much noise around.'   Mrs Lau was dragged unconscious from the water by an heroic fireman.

   She was one of the lucky ones. It was not until the afternoon that the fire brigade had the conflagration under control.

  The China Mail described the ghastly scene: 'Still at the end of the wharf were small roasted bodies of children and women, waiting to be loaded aboard trucks and driven to the mortuary.

  'Charred clothing, suitcases, remnants of personal belongings and blackened wads of banknotes lay around unheeded by the rescuers and workers.'   The crowd may have left the wads of banknotes alone; but somebody stole the shoes of police Inspector Kinloch, which he had left neatly on the side of the wharf, before hurling himself valiantly into the harbour to rescue a stricken passenger, struggling for his life in the troubled waters.



On another day