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Following is the English portion of the transcript of the media session by the Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, at the Princess Margaret Hospital this (Monday) morning after visiting people who were injured in the aircraft accident yesterday.

Reporter : What do you feel about the accident at Chek Lap Kok?

Mr Tung : Well, we are obviously saddened by the death and by the degree of those people who have been injured. It is something that all of us in the Government and all of us in Hong Kong, obviously, are very concerned about. But I would like to say that after the accident, the Government responded really, very very efficiently, whether it was the Police, whether it was the Airport Authority, whether it was our fire fighters, the Hospital Authority, all responded very, very quickly, in a very organised and very professional manner. And from that point of view, Hong Kong has been put to a test and I think we came through it. And none of us obviously want to see this sort of accident happened.

Reporter : Many passengers said that they were kept in the dark of what was happening. So, shouldn't the AA do something to inform the passengers?

Mr Tung : Could I ask the Airport Authority Chairman (Mr Victor Fung), may be, to respond to this and some of the other things?

Mr Fung : We ourselves have been also very concerned obviously about this incident. And ever since the incident started, I was at the airport myself to work closely together with our colleagues to actually handle the incident. And everything now has been taking care of as far as the rescue operations are concerned. We are now very concerned, obviously, about getting the passengers that are now at the airport on their ways. We will be concentrating on that. In terms of getting information to the passengers, we have kept the airlines immediately informed and through them we felt that that was the best way to keep the passengers informed.

Reporter : Why couldn't there be a public announcement of some sort?

Mr Fung : Well, the public announcement, I think really should come out when we have some ideas of when the airport will re-open. And as soon as we have actually handled the rescue operations and knew that the airport would be open by one o'clock, we immediately made the announcement.

Transcript of Chief Executive's media session at PMH (Chinese part)

Photo:The Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, accompanied by the Acting Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Michael Suen, and other senior government officials, visited people who were injured in the aircraft incident at the Princess Margaret Hospital. Picture shows Mr Tung Chee Hwa talking to a woman and her young daughter, both of whom were slightly injured in the incident.

End/Monday, August 23, 1999

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