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Mark Hughes

FOUR Hongkong Bank workers were killed and nine others critically injured after they were trapped behind a security screen during a fire set by an arsonist yesterday.

  The branch had no fire exit, no sprinkler system, no fire-retardant furniture and no security guard.

  The tragedy has prompted calls from the Fire Services Department for safety laws to be tightened on all commercial buildings.

  Among the dead was 26-year-old Tsang Liu Pui-kei, who was pregnant. Medical staff said her 12-week-old baby's heart had stopped beating shortly after she was admitted.

  Police said a 32-year-old man entered the Shekkipmei branch of the Hongkong Bank in Nam Cheong Street shortly after 11 am looking for his estranged wife. She had reportedly left him a week ago and was staying with a member of the bank's staff.

  After briefly talking to a female teller, the man ordered customers from the bank, put two cans of inflammable liquid on the floor and set them alight.

  The staff could not escape from their locked security area as the bank filled with flames and choking black smoke.

  The smoke was so thick that when firemen arrived minutes later they had to feel their way along walls to find the double doors to the security area.

  Even then it took firemen using crowbars and axes 10 minutes to break through the doors. When they did so, they found two women already dead and the remaining 11 staff unconscious. Two of the injured died in hospital early this morning.

  According to a bank spokesman, it could have been feasible for staff to escape into the manager's office and out through another door into the customer side of the security screens. For reasons no one yet knows, the staff did not do so.

  The suspect was arrested by a patrolling policeman minutes after the blaze began.

  The nine injured were all in a critical condition and doctors said they were unlikely to live. If they did survive they would almost certainly be brain-damaged.

  The tragedy prompted the Hong Kong Association of Banks to call for a check on the state of fire precautions in banks.

  Hongkong Bank spokesman Bob Sherbin denied allegations that security was being put before safety in branches of the bank. He described the attack as an act of irrationality.

  ''We do regard fire safety extremely seriously and we review our policies regularly. We will look very carefully at our policies in the light of this experience,'' he said.

  ''There is a delicate balance to be maintained with the bank in ensuring that both security and safety are met, and we deal with the issues together, not separately.''   Once the extent of the tragedy had become known, a series of top-level meetings were convened at the bank's headquarters.

  ''It is too early to say what kind of forward planning will be done at this stage. We had been inspected by the Fire Services. As far as I know, they were satisfied with the safety of the premises. There were fire-fighting devices such as fire extinguishers inside,'' Mr Sherbin said.

  He said all staff were covered by life and health insurance policies.

  ''They will certainly receive what is in those policies and we will do what we can to help them and their families,'' he added.

  Paul Selway-Swift, executive director of Hongkong Bank, ruled out any link between safety and profits and said all legal obligations on safety had been carried out.

  A spokesman for the Buildings Department said premises in Hong Kong which were unlikely to have more than 100 people in them at any one time were required to have only one exit.



Four die in Bank fire