Just Saying | Hong Kong’s giant trees can be deadly, but we keep forgetting it
Yonden Lhatoo can hardly believe that seven years after a well publicised deadly accident, shoddy management is still to blame for this menace and no one seems to care
An expert suggested root decay brought down the tree, which was the government’s responsibility. It might also have become top-heavy, perched on a slope with thin soil loosened by rainy weather – a recipe for disaster.
Then on Wednesday morning, another giant tree, 21 metres tall, collapsed on Bonham Road in Sai Ying Pun, a major Mid-Levels thoroughfare, hitting a goods vehicle and injuring a newspaper vendor and a woman passing by. This time the Highways Department was responsible for the maintenance of the tree, which was apparently recommended for felling more than a year ago.
Investigations are under way, and by the time the facts are ascertained, I can pretty much guarantee there will be very little to no media interest, given the short pubic attention span in such matters. After all, no one was killed, right?
Sounds cynical, I know, but look what happened last August when a heavily pregnant woman waiting for a bus was killed by a falling tree on Robinson Road in Mid-Levels.
In this case, again, a specialist said the 10-metre-tall tree was ill suited to be balancing on a confined slope with thin soil, and its trunk was rotten and brittle as a biscuit. Responsibility fell on the residential estate in which the tree was planted, but it also highlighted the lack of regulations to ensure private owners look after trees on their property.