Scaffolding Collapse from Typhoon Kills One

Thirty floors of bamboo scaffolding collapsed in Happy Valley

Around dinner time last night the rain started to fall and it continued to rain all day today as Tropical Storm Lionrock approached the city. The Hong Kong Observatory put up the T3 signal and in the morning the heavy rains resulted in a black rainstorm warning around 11.45am, which means people should shelter indoors as quickly as possible.

But that came too late for one 55-year-old woman who was working on the renovations of a high rise building in Happy Valley, as 30 floors worth of bamboo scaffolding collapsed from the heavy rain and strong winds. She and another female construction worker were taken to hospital, but the former died on arrival. 

Rescuers found two women, but one died later

Another male worker was rescued safely from the scaffolding wreckage while two drivers managed to get out before firefighters arrived.

Assistant divisional officer Wong Ka-ho of the Fire Services Department said 18 fire engines and eight ambulances were sent to the scene after receiving a report at 10.16am.

He said firefighters spent an hour and 20 minutes trying to rescue the woman, who was unconscious when they finally reached her.

Wong said the sheer number of bamboo poles and the amount of debris "hampered our efforts to find and rescue her and the passage to reach her was narrow", adding the operation was compounded by the bad weather, with firefighters under threat from further collapse of scaffolding.

One homeowner said the black rainstorm warning should have been issued earlier to suspend building work before people were on-site.

There will be more heavy rain this weekend

"The company concerned should have really cancelled the work day for its staff under these conditions," he said.

Some residents said the scaffolding had been in place for a year to renovate the facades, lobbies and recreational facilities.  

On Twitter there were lots of video clips of flooded streets, a bus driver plowing through flooded roads resulting in dirty water coming into the bus, and water dripping from the ceiling of an MTR carriage.

It's midnight now but Lionrock is expected to be closest to Hong Kong in the morning which means more heavy rains this weekend.

There's another typhoon coming on Wednesday...

Privileged Few Get Booster Shots

Regina Ip opted to get BioNTech jab for her booster shot

Back in February when Sinovac vaccines were available before BioNTech, pro-establishment lawmakers lined up with their sleeves rolled up to get the jab as a sign of patriotism.

Now it turns out six months later their vaccine has produced zero antibodies and some have lined up again this time to be guinea pigs to see what happens when they get a booster shot.

Ip said she had no detectable antibodies

One of them is Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, a member of the Executive Council. The participants of the study, being conducted at the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital in Happy Valley, were given a choice of either staying with the same brand of vaccine as the first two shots, or switching to a different one.

She and two other Exco members chose the BioNTech jab, as they said they did an antibody test and none were detected after they had taken the Sinovac vaccine.

According to Ip, the other Exco members who are taking part in the study are Chow Chung-kong, Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun, Joseph Yam Chi-kwong, Dr Lam Ching-choi, and Wong Kwok-kin.

Lam and Wong both advocated for people to get their third shot, but government pandemic adviser Dr David Hui Shu-cheong questioned the need for booster shots if people are generally healthy.

Hui questioned if healthy people need boosters

While higher antibody levels could help reduce the risk of symptomatic infections, their waning after Sinovac shots was consistent with data previously reported on the mainland, which had found levels were undetectable six to eight months after taking the jabs, he noted.

"They still have T cell responses, which can protect them from death or severe conditions," Hui said.

Healthy individuals whose antibodies have significantly dropped following vaccination should not be given priority for third shots, said Hui.

"Priority should be given to immunocompromised people, such as those who have undergone organ or bone marrow transplant, followed by the elderly," he said.

The six Exco members must be relieved to get booster shots -- all in the name of science, right?

Picture of the Day: Putting Bets on the Horses

Our stack of bets that didn't amount to much in the end!

A good friend took me and another girlfriend to the races tonight at Happy Valley. We had a delicious meal of baked cod with Malaysian spices (ie spicy soy sauce), and an appetizer and dessert buffet, but when it came to horse racing we weren't very good punters.

I tried to do my homework and study the racing section of the newspaper ahead of time, but only managed to glean some picks from the racing journalists.

In the first race I picked two horses to place and they both came in! For a HK$40 bet I made HK$58!

After that it was all downhill -- lost the next four races. Thank goodness we left after the fifth one and cut our losses. My friends fared worse than me -- they didn't win at all!

Nevertheless it is fun to sit in the member's area, enjoy some dinner and drinks, catch up and then go place some bets every half hour.

In the end we have a pile of HK$10 and HK$20 bets that amounted nothing, but we had a fun evening anyway.

Picture of the Day: First Day of the Year of the Dog

The clouds disappeared to reveal blue skies while riding the Star Ferry today

Today was the first blue sky Hongkongers have seen in... yonks.

It's been cold, miserable and overcast for weeks and then suddenly for the first day of the Lunar New Year there were blue skies and the hottest temperatures we've seen for the holiday in 11 years at 24 degrees Celsius.

Some districts like Happy Valley, Kowloon City and Sha Tin recorded up to 27 degrees.

The Hong Kong Observatory says a maritime airstream affected the coastal areas of Guangdong province, though cloudy skies are expected in the next few days again. Groan.

We'll take what we can get!

26 Hours to Diffuse a 450kg Bomb

A bomb disposal officer inspects the bomb found in a construction site

Part of Wan Chai was at a standstill yesterday when bomb disposal officers successfully defused a 450kg explosive from World War II at a construction site. For 26 hours roads in the area were closed off, while people were evacuated from offices and hotels.

This is the second time in Hong Kong history that such a large bomb was discovered in the city centre.

A group shot of the bomb squad and the American explosive

The bomb squad used pressurized water and sanding to cut holes in the large cigar-shaped free-fall bomb to incinerate the explosive material inside before it could be safely removed from the site, buried 25 metres deep.

"The whole process was quite complicated. It took a bit longer than we expected," said senior police bomb disposal officer Tony Chow Shek-kin. The bomb was an American-made AN-M65, thought to have been dropped by US warplanes sometime between 1941 and 1945.

"Because the bomb was so big, we had to cut several holes to burn off the explosives inside. The space was tight and the bomb was also slanted at an angle," he said.

If the bomb had exploded, the 225kg of explosives would have sent shrapnel flying as far as 2km, Chow said.

"The shock wave and impact of the bomb could easily have measured 200 to 300 metres. The windows of buildings in the area would have probably shattered and it's possible those nearby would have collapsed," he added.

Roads were closed off and people evacuated in Wan Chai

The 1.4 metre-long bomb with a 0.45m diameter was found in the construction site of the Sha Tin-Central rail link on Harbour Road. As a result, most of Harbour Road and Convention Avenue were blocked off, and the nearby Harbour Road Sports Centre was also closed.

The last big bomb that was defused was in 2014 in Happy Valley and weighed 900kg.

Makes you wonder what other bombs are lurking beneath the surface! But at the same time it's fascinating history too.

Fact of the Day: Microflats Getting Even Smaller

Can you live in a tiny space like this day after day, year after year?

Just when you thought Hong Kong flats couldn't get even smaller, they are.

Emperor International Holdings will have the tiniest flats in the city when it plans to launch a project where each unit measures 61.4 square feet or 5.7 square metres.

One can barely even fit a mattress in that space.

Located at 17-19 Yik Kam Street in Happy Valley, the project -- which is yet to be named -- converts an existing 21-storey commercial building into a residential one.

The unit's current measurement doesn't include the space allocated for a kitchen and bathroom.

But when they are added, the space is still smaller than a project in Jordan called AVA62. There each unit measures 152 square feet -- including a balcony -- selling for HK$20,000 per square foot or HK$3 million.

Microflats are very popular because average home prices have soared beyond the reach of average salary earners, prompting developers to scale down.

And to meet the demand, as many as 5,000 small flats are in in the pipeline every year until 2019, almost triple the average in the last decade.

We get that developers are appealing to investors and first-time buyers to create flats that are somewhat affordable.

But who wants to live in flats like that? What are the psychological effects of living in such tiny spaces?

It can't be good for one's wellbeing...

Moaning About Housing (Again)

Cheung Kong's Mont Vert development in Tai Po is not selling like hot cakes

Occupy is over for now, but grumbling about property prices is not.

Tonight a friend told us about looking at flats for investment in Happy Valley. She saw a studio that was 210 square feet. For how much? I guessed right -- HK$3 million.

She said it was so tiny, with only a small counter space for a "kitchen", if you can call it that. There would only be room for a hot plate and maybe a fridge.

If the place was rented out, the landlord could get HK$10,000 a month.

Flats here are less than 200 sq ft, and not near public transport

She said that it was good for people who wanted to move out of their parents' place to have their own space -- but only 210 sq ft?! Why waste the money for that! Might as well grin and bear it with the parental units and save the HK$10K and perhaps go on short trips more often instead.

Anyway -- this ties into the latest news with Mont Vert, Cheung Kong's development in Tai Po that is selling its microflats that are 180 sq ft.

A female reporter checked out the space and when she stretched out her arms, they almost reached the width of the room. Of course there was only enough room for a bed and perhaps a wardrobe.

The cost of flats these size? HK$1.59 million to HK$1.65 million.

Would a first-time homeowner really put down their hard-earned money on such a tiny space to live in?

Its location near Chinese tombs hardly makes it desirable!

The other factor holding back buyers is that the flats are located near large traditional Chinese tombs, which is not good for fung shui reasons.

Oh but wait -- how about buying three microflats together and making them into one big flat of 540 sq ft for HK$7 million?

Prices like these are outrageous to say the least, not to mention the psychological effects of living in such tiny spaces.

This is one of the reasons why we went out and occupied the streets!

Obviously no one is listening or cares to listen...

Bomb Scare in Happy Valley

The giant World War II-era bomb packed with 450kg of explosives

On Thursday afternoon Hong Kong had quite a shock when a 2,000-pound bomb from World War II was discovered in a Happy Valley construction site.

Some 2,200 people who were within a 200-metre radius of the bomb had to be evacuated, including guests from the Cosmo Hotel and Cosmopolitan Hotel and Xinhua News Agency on Queen's Road East.

The device was an AN-M66 that contained 450kg of explosives -- enough to knock out a few buildings.

It was the biggest bomb of its kind dropped on Hong Kong by US bombers as part of a one-day pounding of Japanese positions on January 16, 1945.

Senior bomb disposal officer Jimmy Yuen Hon-wing of the Explosive Ordinance Disposal Bureau said a US bomber flying out of Guangzhou had carried the bomb but it must have landed on soft ground and failed to detonate.

The police team poses with the diffused bomb with two holes

Yuen said they didn't dare move the bomb in case it could cause severe damage in the area and a controlled explosion was out of the question as well.

In the end the team worked overnight and managed to diffuse it by 7am the next morning. Yuen said there were technical problems in drilling holes into the bomb because it had so much explosives in it.

"Because the explosive inside was very sensitive, we had to cut the shell in a low-temperature environment, so the process took longer than expected," he said.

This was the biggest assignment in his 22-year career for the 55 year old police senior superintendent.

Yuen and his team had to cut two holes into the casing of the bomb in order to get in to diffuse it. They had to keep the temperature of the cutting gear down to 400 degrees Celsius and while they thought it would take them a few hours, stretched into nine.

Where did the hotel guests stay at that evening? Other hotels, including The Peninsula... which under normal circumstances would have cost them a bomb...