Missing Hong Kong banker’s body found on hillside in country park, police confirm
- Former chairman of the Bank of Communications (Hong Kong) Shou Fugang reported missing on Monday
- Government says it found a body on a hillside near Mount Hallowes in Sai Kung Country Park shortly before 1pm
Police have confirmed that a body found during a country park search on Friday is that of Shou Fugang, former chairman of the Bank of Communications (Hong Kong), who went missing while hiking on Sunday.
Clothing on the body matched the description of items Shou, 59, was wearing when he disappeared in Sai Kung Country Park, the force said.
After a five-day rescue operation, crew on board a Government Flying Service helicopter spotted the body at 12.45pm on the hillside at the bottom of a 50-metre slope near Tam Chai Shan, also known as Mount Hallowes.
Officers from Eastern police district reached the site after 5pm and confirmed it was Shou’s body. Police said that initial investigations did not reveal anything suspicious. Shou’s wallet was recovered but his mobile phone has not been found.
“The wallet and its contents remained with the deceased person. There were scratches on his body and his legs were fractured. But we found no suspicious wounds on him,” Chief Inspector Kong Sze-wan said.
“We believe he accidentally fell 50 metres down the slope while hiking alone and could not be saved in time.”
The force deployed more than 400 officers in total for the rescue mission. The Fire Services Department also sent more than 550 rescuers and 125 fire engines to comb an area spanning more than 40 sq km.
The fire services authority said the operation was particularly difficult because of the limited information available about Shou’s whereabouts and the unstable weather in the past five days, when Hong Kong encountered very hot days as well as torrential rain. The city on Thursday experienced hail for the first time in five years.
Mount Hallowes is about 5km from Shek Uk Shan, where Shou’s telephone signal was last detected.
He left his North Point home at around 6.45am on Sunday and boarded a ferry at Ma Liu Shui pier in Sha Tin at about 8am before he started his hike.
Shou, a non-executive director of the Bank of Communications (Bocom) as well as the executive director and CEO of China Bocom Insurance Company Limited, failed to show up for a Sunday dinner appointment with his niece in Causeway Bay.
The woman contacted one of his colleagues on Monday and a police report was made after they entered Shou’s flat with a spare key to find it empty. A map of Sai Kung was on a table.
His wife, who was in Shanghai, told police that Shou had texted her to say he planned to go on a hike that weekend.
According to the bank’s website, Shou joined it in 1987 and was appointed as director in August 2007 before being redesignated as a non-executive director in 2016. He was chairman from 2017 to 2019.
In the first six months of this year, firefighters were deployed in 566 mountain rescue operations. The number of such incidents rose to 602 in 2020 from 215 the previous year.
According to the Fire Services Department, there were five hiking-related fatalities in the first six month of this year. The number of hiking deaths decreased to 11 last year from 13 in 2019.
The number of injuries in hiking-related cases reached 351 between January and June, more than the 323 recorded for the whole of 2020. In 2019, 121 people were injured.
