Transcript of Acting Governor speaking to the press
The following is a transcript by the Acting Governor, Mrs Anson Chan, speaking to the media at CGO lobby today (Monday):
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Mrs Chan: First of all, to the families of the young boy who died in Chai Wan and also to the relatives of those people who are still missing in the Shum Wan incident. As you know, both the Secretary for Security and Secretary for Works and other senior officials were at the scene of the tragedy as soon as possible to make sure that emergency work, particularly work in helping to find the missing persons continued without any delay. I had a meeting myself this morning with all responsible policy secretaries, just to review the situation, clearly in the light of the continuing rains and to ensure that co-ordination is carried out at the highest level. I am satisfied that we are doing everything that we possibly can. But there will obviously be an impact on traffic particularly and I hope that employers can perhaps help out by letting their staff go early today in batches so as to ease the traffic on roads, particularly as it has been necessary to close quite a few of the roads on Hong Kong Island. We will obviously be looking at these closed roads and to carry out the necessary remedial work so that we can open these roads as soon as possible. But it will clearly take a few days.
Q: A review has recently been finished on slopes. Do you think further work needs to be done?
Mrs Chan: It's a continuing effort. But I think you'll see that despite the fact that we have had such very very heavy rains over a very concentrated period, by and large, I am glad to know that the number of landslides have not in fact been as many as might have happened before we took remedial action to stabilise quite a lot of our slopes. I clearly hope that we will not see any further serious landslips in the next few days. But it depends very much on the weather conditions.
Q: So a couple of fatalities in heavy rain is acceptable...
Mrs Chan: No, it's not acceptable. I think every life lost is not acceptable but I am saying that the government is doing everything we possibly can to avoid such landslides. If an unfortunate landslip does occur, then we must make sure that we are on the spot quickly, and helping the evacuation work. We're also doing what we can to ensure that the roads can be re-opened to traffic as soon as possible.
Q: Is there any word of what might have caused the landslips apart from the rain?
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