COMMUNICATIONS
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delivery services. Two offices opened in the early part of the year at Sha Tau Kok, and Tai O on Lantau Island, are of a uniform pattern designed for small rural communities, and are accom- modated in buildings shared with the Fire Service and Urban Services Departments. The office at Tai O serves a densely populated market town and fishing port. A new office was also opened at Kwun Tong, an industrial area which ultimately will have a population of 250,000.
Work started on the new Kowloon central post office, while new offices to replace existing buildings were opened at Yuen Long, Aberdeen and Hong Kong airport. A second mobile post office was also brought into service. No further mobile offices should be necessary, as the whole of the rural area is now included in the itinerary. As new permanent buildings are opened the mobile offices are being diverted to less densely populated areas. These mobile offices, together with the permanent post offices, have pro- vided a valuable link between people working overseas and their families in the rural areas. Postal orders valued at $29 million were encashed at New Territories post offices during the year. Many temporary post offices were set up for special events, in- cluding the arrival of world cruise liners, the Junior Chamber International World Conference and the Chinese Manufacturers' Exhibition.
During typhoon Wanda in September the three buildings of the main Kowloon post office at Tsim Sha Tsui suffered considerable damage, but due to the commendable resource of staff members damage to mail was prevented. At Sha Tin the post office, which stands near the sea wall, was flooded to a depth of nine feet, but again due to the devotion to duty of the clerk in charge, mail and post office stock were preserved intact. The town's postal service was maintained from a mobile post office for two days and then part of the office was reoccupied until repairs to the damaged part could be completed. The railway line was out of action, which meant that mails to and from China had to be taken by road from Kowloon to a station near the border.
Two new postal systems were introduced-parcel delivery and night duties. Until this year parcels were delivered over the counter only, but in July a door-to-door parcel delivery service was started. It was part of a scheme in which the foot postmen serving the