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SCMP Reporter

The footpath where an Aberdeen newspaper vendor was killed by a falling concrete canopy and 'huge' fish tank had been soaked by dripping water for years, a court heard yesterday.

 Mo Yee had put up an umbrella so her papers would not get wet.

 Just seconds before she was crushed she had given a buyer a replacement paper because the original was damp, the Court of First Instance was told.

 Eight people - those injured in the 1994 tragedy and relatives of Mo - are claiming damages for negligence from the owners of the New Best Restaurant and five other defendants.

 Their barrister, Michael Ozorio SC, said that had it not been for the defendants' negligence the collapse could not have happened at 11.20am on August 1.

 'Thankfully the collapse did not occur any earlier that morning. Had the collapse occurred at a busier time for the restaurant then many more would have been killed or injured,' Mr Ozorio said.

 The fish tank was illegally built, mostly on the 15-tonne canopy on the first floor, and was used to keep live seafood, the court heard.

 Mr Ozorio said Mak May-fung, whose daughter, Tsui Wai-ngon, then five, suffered head injuries in the collapse, had seen water dripping from the canopy many times and noticed the carpet outside was always wet.

 'Sometimes she was soaked by dripping water and had to walk on the road to avoid getting her shoes wet,' he said.

 The daughter of the dead woman, Tsui Ho, also sold newspapers outside Albert House, the location of New Best Restaurant.

 Mr Ozorio said renovation work on the canopy had begun about 10 days before the tragedy and Ms Tsui had been hit by sand, stones and rocks in the days before the collapse.

 She too had noticed 'smelly and dirty' water dripping from above and had set up the umbrella where her mother sat.

 Ms Tsui was on her way back from the bathroom when she saw her mother 'crushed to death before her eyes'.

 Other claimants include Lily Tse Lai-ying and her son, Ho Shiu-tak, then three, who were on their way home from the Aberdeen wet market when the canopy and fish tank fell.

 She is paralysed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair, and Shiu-tak, while not seriously hurt, was traumatised, the court heard.

 Another passerby, Ng Pak-mui, suffered head and hand injuries and eventually needed to have a finger amputated. Her baby son suffered 'acute suffocation' but had since recovered.

 The case continues before Mr Justice Azizul Suffiad.



Fish tank 'leaked for years' before collapse