Thirty-nine motorcycles were set alight yesterday in the worst arson attack in Macau since the handover in December.
Dozens of residents fled their homes as smoke billowed through densely populated narrow lanes in the Inner Harbour area at 4am.
Two elderly women and a man in his 70s were treated for smoke inhalation.
It took residents using buckets of water and firefighters about 10 minutes to put out the blaze.
The motorcycles were parked outside a row of terraced houses. A van parked nearby and a ground-floor shop were damaged by the flames. A police spokesman said the reason for the arson attack was not known.
However, other police sources said the attack had possibly been carried out by young triad members in an attempt to impress their bosses or create an atmosphere of terror.
