Hong Kong’s Festival Walk mall hit by indoor downpour as water streams from fire sprinklers on upper floors
- The incident resembled one more than six years ago when rainwater flooded into the Kowloon Tong mall
- Shoppers open umbrellas to escape from the ‘rain’ while shops are forced to close
Waterfall-like torrents poured down inside Hong Kong’s glitzy Festival Walk shopping centre on Saturday night, sparking the evacuation of customers and closure of stores.
The freak, indoor downpour resembled one more than six years ago when rainwater flooded into the Kowloon Tong mall, disabling six escalators and covering shop floors.
Shortly before 8pm on an already rainy Saturday night, water appeared to stream out of fire sprinklers on the mall’s upper floors, soaking a Mini car display in the atrium. Shoppers opened umbrellas to escape from the “rain”. Most shops also closed.
The Fire Services Department received a No 1 automatic fire alarm from the mall at 7.47pm, according to government records. Firefighters arrived at the mall shortly after.
Cleaners were also seen tackling the water.
Hong Kong had been braced for flash flooding since Monday as heavy rain hit the city. The observatory issued a red rainstorm warning at around 9am on Saturday, indicating that heavy rain exceeding 50 millimetres an hour had fallen or was expected to fall generally over the city.
It was reduced to a yellow rainstorm warning at 10.25am and cancelled at 12.05pm, However, the thunderstorm warning was still in force at the time of the incident.
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A spokesman for Singapore’s Mapletree North Asia Commercial Trust, which owns the mall, said on Sunday that a preliminary investigation pointed to a technical component fault.
“There was minimal damage to the property and the affected parts of the retail mall were back in operation within an hour,” the spokesman said. “Any inconvenience caused to both tenants and the public is regretted.”
In November, the 1.2 million sq ft shopping-and-office complex was the scene of trouble as black-clad radicals broke glass and railings and fought with plain-clothes police officers. A petrol bomb was thrown at the tree, causing it to go up in flames.
When the mall reopened, damaged glass panels had been replaced with white metal fences, while some customers had to take detours to get to their destination with more than a dozen escalators still out of action.
In March 2014, rainwater from the roof poured into the mall’s food court as the first black rainstorm of the year pounded the city. It took the mall three days to clean up before normal service resumed.
A broken drainpipe on the roof was to blame for the indoor deluge, according to the Buildings Department.
