PEOPLE with hearing disabilities yesterday asked for captions in Chinese for all TV news and information programmes. They said the lack of captions had contributed to a tragedy two years ago when a deaf woman was killed in torrential rain. They said the captions requirement should be made part of licensing conditions for the TV stations. A member of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service's Co-ordinating Committee on the Deaf, Lai Boon-lap, said the deaf woman, in her 30s, had failed to understand TV reports of a rainstorm. She drowned in floodwaters when she was washed away in Aberdeen while on the way to work. ''If she had been aware of the hoisting of the rainstorm black warning and had received the information from TV, she would not have gone to work and her life could have been saved. It was very sad,'' he said. Mr Lai, who has been deaf for 20 years, said: ''We have no access to information about what happens outside and are separated from the rest of the world. There may be special announcements of the arrival of typhoons or rain on the TV or radio but I may not know.'' The committee's vice-chairman, Winnie Wong Ho Kit-yuk, said: ''Subtitles should be available for most TV programmes because everyone should have equal opportunities and access to information.'' The committee's recent survey on the views of 736 deaf people showed almost all of them would like all TV programmes to have subtitles. More than 60 per cent said captions should be available for news and weather reports, special announcements and information programmes. Mr Lai said: ''As the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority is now reviewing the licences of the two local stations, the Government should consider imposing caption requirements.''
