24
HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
unkind. In July 1954, in the very middle of the 'close sea- son', the third worst squatter fire in the Colony's history occurred at Tai Hang Tung, just a month before the fire lanes in that area were to be completed. 24,000 people lost their homes in the hours of darkness and there ensued a melancholy repetition of the events which had followed the Shek Kip Mei fire. The streets of Shamshuipo in Kowloon, which had just been cleared of the victims of the earlier fire, were again filled with temporary shacks. The cost of direct relief measures was again running at above $40,000 a day. The resettlement of the remaining Shek Kip Mei fire victims, those who had found temporary accommodation off the streets, was deferred, and the new destitutes were given precedence.
The Resettlement Department revised its dispositions, put new plans in train and returned to the question of overall policy. There was talk of a survey and census of all squatter areas. But it was thought on good general grounds that there were 250,000 squatters and fire victims (in fact, the total was probably nearer 450,000) remaining to be resettled and it seemed an unjustifiable extravagance to use valuable man- power and time in proving that that estimate was wrong-at least until the job was much nearer completion. The separate problems presented by Hong Kong and Kowloon were then considered. It seems that as far as Hong Kong Island was concerned the problem might possibly be capable of solution by a vigorous prosecution of the old methods which had been applied before the Shek Kip Mei fire. But in Kowloon the position was much worse. In Kowloon a relatively simple calculation showed that the problem simply could not be solved unless squatters could be rehoused in areas substan- tially smaller than those which they occupied in squatter conditions. The conclusion was reached by the Resettlement and Public Works Departments, and eventually accepted by Government, that in order to achieve this (for such was the density of population in squatter areas) resettlement must