The deadly Hong Kong hill fire that claimed the lives of three students and two teachers in 1996
- The Pat Sin Leng Country Park fire was sparked by cigarettes or a lighter used by some of the students
- The hike came at the height of the dry season; as well as those killed, five survivors suffered severe burns. The 1996 fire prompted a tightening of park safety
“Four killed as blaze engulfs school hikers,” read a headline in the South China Morning Post on February 11, 1996.
“As an inquiry was launched […] a harrowing picture emerged of their last moments scrambling up the steep hill as flames raced up on them from behind,” the story continued, describing a school trip to Pat Sin Leng Country Park that ended in tragedy.
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Forty-eight pupils from Fung Yiu King Memorial Secondary School, in Ma On Shan, had been hiking with four teachers and a chaperone when a hill fire broke out, sparked by cigarettes or a lighter used by some of the students amid an intense dry season, an investigation later found.
Teachers led some pupils to safety while others trapped by walls of fire screamed for help. Government helicopters lowered rescuers onto the hillside and dropped water bombs to fight the blaze.
Two students and two teachers died on the hill, including popular biology teacher Chow Chi-chai, the Post reported. Yu Hui-woon, 13, lost her fight for life 10 days later after receiving intensive care. She was among 11 students hospitalised.
One family whose son had been presumed dead was “overjoyed” the following day when he was found on the hillside. Lee Chun-man, 13, had asked his rescuer to winch up younger pupils to the helicopter before him and been left behind in the confusion. “It’s just like winning a Mark Six lottery,” his father told reporters.
In the aftermath of the fire, 35 doctors and 70 nurses at Prince of Wales Hospital oversaw the rehabilitation of six severely burned students, who were given “less than a 50 per cent chance of surviving”, the Post reported. Of those hospitalised, all but Yu lived.
The fire prompted a tightening of park safety and raising of emergency response standards. It was also the first time that DNA fingerprinting, a new method that had been used in the O.J. Simpson trial, in the United States, the previous year, was employed to identify bodies in Hong Kong.
