- 7 -
Other agencies participating in the event included the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, Agriculture and Fisheries Department, Civil Aid Services, Government Flying Service, Auxiliary Medical Services and the Hospital Authority.
More than 200 members from these agencies took part in the exercise.
A spokesman for the Fire Services Department said despite the large deployment of emergency services to the Shing Mun Country Park during the exercise, inconvenience to the public had been kept to the minimum.
This large scale exercise was one of the steps taken by the Government in implementing the recommendations put forward by the inter-departmental team investigating into the Pat Sin Leng hill fire incident. Similar mountain search and rescue exercise would be held annually.
End
Law to improve employees' benefits proposed
Two bills seeking to improve employees' benefits in respect of sickness allowance and compensation for temporary incapacity arising from work-related injuries respectively are published in the gazette today (Friday).
The Employment (Amendment) (No 3) Bill 1996 proposes to revise the rate of sickness allowance from two-thirds to four-fifths of an employee's wages, while maintaining the existing minimum qualifying requirement of four consecutive sickness days.
The Employees' Compensation (Amendment) (No 2) Bill 1996 seeks to:
repeal the three-day qualifying period for entitlement to periodical payments; and
increase the rate of periodical payments from two-thirds to four-fifths of the difference in the earnings of the injured employee before and after the accident;
introduce a simplified notification procedure whereby employers are required to notify the Commissioner for Labour of any accident which results in temporary incapacity of an employee for a period not exceeding three days; and