14. Another innovation was the establishment towards the end of the year of a Squatter Control Liaison Unit with its own vote for minor improvements in squatter areas. It is hoped that this Unit will eventually be able to make a useful contribution towards better liaison between Government and people living in squatter areas.
15. Heavy rain in June caused the deaths of 22 people living in squatter huts and the injury of two more. Many squatter huts, partic- ularly on Hong Kong Island, were damaged, their occupants being offered resites in a licensed area; two families were given direct resettle- ment. As a result of these events, a series of visits to potentially dangerous squatter areas was made by a team drawn from the depart- ments concerned, and the squatters affected were offered licensed area sites. At the end of the year, proposals were being studied for a revised approach to resettlement eligibility after a fire or natural disaster affecting a squatter area; consideration was also being given to proposals made by the Housing Board for the inspection by the Public Works Department of potentially dangerous squatter areas and the possible resettlement of their occupants.
16. The year was a disappointing one for clearances: only 40,000 people were offered resettlement and 11,000 residents of estates were moved to rooms in new estates under the programme for the relief of overcrowding, compared with 114,000 and 29,000 respectively last year. The main reasons were the reduction in the number of applica- tions for development clearances (less than a third of the previous year's); the postponement of a large cottage area clearance because of delay in completing the reception block; and the continued reluctance of many overcrowded tenants in the old estates to move to new rooms in the more outlying estates. The largest clearance of the year was of the licensed areas at Tai Wo Hau set up for the 1967 mass- squatters. This clearance possibly also established a record for the speed with which it was processed: in a race against an approaching typhoon some 6,500 people were resettled in a two-day emergency operation in September.
17. Fewer buildings were condemned as dangerous than in 1967-68, 5,300 occupants registering with the Resettlement Department compared with 8,500 during the previous year. Of these, 800 elected to join the Rent Advance Scheme and obtain immediate resettlement. 18. The rate of resettlement building continued at a high level. The planned amount of building constructed by the Public Works
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