HK$65 million bill for repairs on public facilities vandalised by anti-government protesters
- Transport minister Frank Chan reveals costs that were mostly incurred by damaged traffic lights
- Reinforcement works set to be applied to street railings and paving blocks
The bill for repairing public facilities such as traffic lights and pavements damaged by radical anti-government protesters over the past seven months of civil unrest in Hong Kong has hit HK$65 million (US$8.4 million).
In a written reply to the Legislative Council, Secretary for Transport and Housing Frank Chan Fan said that from June to December last year, 740 sets of traffic lights across the city were vandalised or tampered with, while 52.8km of railings along walkways and about 21,800 square metres of paving blocks on footpaths were removed.
Protesters often use railings as roadblocks and dig up bricks to use as projectiles in clashes with police.
Hong Kong has been rocked by protests since June, sparked by the now-withdrawn extradition bill, but the campaign has grown into a wider anti-government movement.
Chan said the vandalism of traffic lights mostly involved the cutting of cables or blackening of their surfaces. In some cases, components within the installations, as well as traffic signal control boxes, were damaged.
