Villagers expressed delight yesterday as work proceeded on clearing rubble illegally dumped on a Tai Po field almost two months ago, but they wished the cleanup could be quicker.
A digger and a fleet of trucks are working to remove the debris from the land in Ting Kok Tsuen ahead of the government's June 25 deadline. The trucks moved in on Tuesday, but the work was interrupted by heavy rain on Wednesday.
'The speed of the cleanup is quite slow compared with the efficiency of the dumping,' villager Pang Pak-shing said. 'But we villagers are happy to see a start on the cleanup.'
Village elder Lo Tung-tai, 85, said she was watching for any similar incidents. 'Since the dumping stopped, I now keep a closer eye on suspicious trucks when I sit and play Hakka card games by the roadside every day ... I just want my piece of land back to its original shape.'
No chances are being taken with a 150-square-metre government plot 10 metres away, which was fenced off on Wednesday.
The debris is being cleared by China King Properties, which owns land in the vicinity and claims the debris was dumped on the villagers' plots in error by trucks it had hired.
