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Following is a transcript of remarks (English portion) made by the Director of Food and Environmental Hygiene, Mr Clement Leung, at a media stand-up session at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre today (November 30):
We are all shocked by the tragedy that happened in Fa Yuen Street this morning and I would like to use this opportunity to express my deepest condolences to those who were injured in this incident and wish them a speedy recovery. We know that the Fire Services Department and the Police are now investigating the cause of this fire incident and also trying to establish why there are so many casualties in this incident. The Fire Services Department is not ruling out a case of arson so we will look at the investigation process and the results very carefully.
As far as the FEHD is concerned, after the big fire last year we have been implementing a number of measures to improve the fire safety situation in Fa Yuen Street that included limiting the size and height of the hawker stalls and prohibiting the stall canopies from being connected to each other and to connecting buildings. We have also arranged with China Light and Power to supply legal and safe electricity to the stalls and to re-site hawker stalls standing at the entrance of single staircase buildings to ensure that there is sufficient space for residents to escape in case of fire. We also require stalls to maintain a suitable distance among each other to provide enough room for fire engines to move around and to operate in case of fire. In terms of enforcement, we have been escalating our actions and prosecuting hawkers and stall owners who have violated our rules in storing an excessive amount of merchandise outside their stalls. And just in the middle of this month, we issued 200 warning letters to all stall owners and operators telling them that they should, within a reasonable period of time, remove obstructions from the streets. I would like to appeal to the stall owners and stall operators to exercise self-discipline and self-restraint and say that the FEHD would escalate enforcement actions.
Of course, this morning the CE mentioned that the safety measures didn't seem to be enough to prevent tragedy from happening. I immediately talked to the District Council Chairman as well as trying to sit together with other departments to try to find a way to enhance fire safety measures so that the situation can be improved immediately.
Reporter: You say that there have already been 600 prosecutions since December. Would you say the deterrent effect is not enough? Do we need heavier penalties?
Director of Food and Environmental Hygiene: Looking at it from a very objective way, the situation has much improved when compared with the situation before the fire last year. There is a lot of concern whether this level of enforcement is sufficient to prevent similar tragedy from happening again. So, as I have just said, we will be looking at whether we should have more stringent measures, for example increasing the level of penalty, whether there are better ways to organise the hawker permitted area to prevent the situation from deteriorating or prevent similar tragedy from happening.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Issued at HKT 19:55
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