Public Eye: don’t call it a world city, this fire tragedy shames Hong Kong

Go to a supermarket, any supermarket. Either of the two big Hong Kong chains will do. Try to negotiate your shopping cart down any aisle. Not easy, right? Downright impossible if another shopper is coming in the opposition direction. One will have to back up.

And what about all those large boxes of products most supermarkets place on both sides of the aisles? Not only do they make it even harder to push carts, you can’t see price tags or reach items on shelves.

Now imagine a fire breaking out. Everything inside is going to burn like hell. Panicked people trying to escape will tumble over each other and boxes. Most Hong Kong supermarkets have only one exit. And many are in basement levels, making it harder to flee.

Sure, supermarkets have water sprinklers, unlike the Amoycan Industrial Centre in Ngau Tau Kok, where fire raged for five days. And firefighters know what’s inside supermarkets, unlike the Amoycan building which had been converted into a mini-storage facility.

But water sprinklers and knowing what’s burning don’t prevent panic. Panic causes stampedes. And stampedes can kill, especially when they occur in blocked narrow aisles.

The Amoycan fire should shame Hong Kong. It put brave firefighters in an impossible situation, causing a tragedy that should never have happened. Our government brags about Hong Kong being a world city yet allows buildings to lack something as basic as sprinklers.

We have fire safety laws that date back to goodness knows when. It is mind-boggling that high-rise industrial buildings next to homes and schools are allowed to become honeycombs of tiny self-storage cubicles with no controls over what can be stored. Our structural safety laws are no better. Remember the 2010 To Kwa Wan tragedy which killed four when construction work on a dilapidated building caused it to collapse? No so-called world city allows unauthorised building works, but it’s common practice here.

We’ve had a university roof garden that collapsed, crashing trees that killed people and a ferry collision with a high death toll because life jacket rules were ignored. Sounds Third World? You bet. Our bureaucrats are the second-highest-paid in the world. In exchange we expect value for money. But they can never think ahead, only act in hindsight. Lives have to be lost before they get off their butts. World city? Think again.