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Clifford Lo

Yesterday's hostage drama is not the first time that Hong Kong holidaymakers have found themselves in nightmare situations over the years. 
But it was the first of its kind to involve a package tour from the city.
In 2001, two Cathay Pacific pilots and 10 flight attendants were among 120 hostages held in a hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, by pro-Chechen gunmen armed with automatic rifles and shotguns. The ordeal ended after 12 hours when the gunmen surrendered, releasing their captives uninjured.
Over the last decade, Hong Kong holidaymakers have been caught up in other terrifying crises, from the 2004 Asian tsunami - which killed at least 12 people from the city - to horror traffic crashes. 
One of the worst incidents was in Egypt in January 2006 when a tour bus crashed on the Safaga Highway  on the way to Luxor,  killing 14 Hong Kong tourists and injuring 30 others.  
The tragedy came less than two years after five holidaymakers from Hong Kong were killed and 31 others injured in a bus crash in Jiufen,   near Taipei.
Mainland roads have also claimed the lives of dozens of Hong Kong tourists since 2001. Three travellers from the city died and 13 others were injured when their tour bus crashed in Hubei  in June 2006. On October 12, 2003, one Hong Kong tourist was killed and nine others injured when their minibus collided head-on with a goods vehicle during a trip to Hunan  province. Nine days earlier, three holidaymakers from the city were killed and three injured when their coach ploughed into a toppled truck on the Huilai section of the Shenzhen-Shantou  Highway. 
The highway was also the site of a bus crash that killed three Hong Kong tourists and injured five on February 12, 2002.  
Two days later, six Hong Kong tourists and their tour guide were killed and 22 others injured when their tour bus plunged down a cliff in Guangxi . 
Just a month passed before a Hong Kong passenger died and 44 other people were injured as a fire ripped through their tour bus, which had crashed on the notorious Guangzhou-Shenzhen Highway in Guangdong.
Even deadlier was the September 2001 coach accident that killed 12 Hong Kong holidaymakers. The vehicle plunged into a mainland river during an eight-day trip to Chongqing  and Chengdu  and Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan province.



Holidays that ended in horror