Mirror concert accident: Hong Kong task force pins blame on use of substandard wire cord, screen weight reporting error
- Head of task force looking into July 28 accident announces preliminary probe findings but declines to say who should be held responsible
- Government source says preliminary test revealed metal wires used to hang five other screens had also shown signs of metal fatigue
An investigation task force has blamed the use of a substandard wire cord and under-reporting of the weight of a 500kg LED screen for an accident that seriously injured a dancer at a concert by Hong Kong boy band Mirror last month.
Lee Tsz-chun, head of a task force looking into the July 28 accident, announced the preliminary findings on Wednesday but declined to say who should be held responsible. The four-by-four-metre screen crashed onto dancer Mo Li Kai-yin, 27, as he performed on stage with others at the Hong Kong Coliseum, leaving him at risk of being paralysed from the neck down.
Task force member Eric Lim Chaw-hyon, a materials testing expert, said: “Several problems have compounded to cause metal fatigue in the wire rope in a short period of time.
“The pressure it [the cord that carried the screen] could withstand was 20 per cent less than those wire ropes we can buy on the market of the same structure.”
Lim said the metal fatigue was aggravated as the LED screen was heavier than what was presented in a submission document and a wrongly installed rope guard further crushed and wore down the cable.