Exclusive | Mirror concert accident: it was avoidable, should not have happened, says incoming chief of Hong Kong engineering body
- Professional safety code demands care, checks when installing heavy overhead equipment, says civil engineer Aaron Bok
- Institution of Engineers’ incoming chief pledges disciplinary action if any members are found responsible
The accident at a concert by Hong Kong boy band Mirror last month, which left a dancer critically injured, would not have happened if sufficient expert care had been taken in installing giant overhead video screens, the incoming chief of the city’s top engineering body has told the Post.
“This accident should not have happened. This was entirely avoidable,” said veteran civil engineer Aaron Bok Kwok-ming. “I would never have allowed a group of artists to dance under a suspended and moving structure. This is highly dangerous.”
Two dancers were hurt when a four-by-four-metre overhead screen weighing more than 540kg (1,190lbs) crashed onto the stage during the concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum on July 28. Critically injured Mo Li Kai-yin, 27, remains in intensive care, in danger of being paralysed from the neck down.
The concert was the fourth of what was to be a series of 12 shows by the hugely popular boy band. The rest of the concerts were cancelled amid an ongoing investigation into the accident.
Bok, 61, who recently retired as head of the Civil Engineering Office under the Civil Engineering and Development Department, will take the helm as the new president of the 33,000-strong Hong Kong Institution of Engineers later this month.
Commenting on the concert accident, he focused on measures which normally would have been taken under the profession’s safety code.
There should not have been a group of artists dancing under the suspended and moving video screen during the concert
He said that at a construction site, for example, lifting equipment was only allowed to operate in a restricted “no-go zone” with nobody working under or near the equipment.