XN000022-1996-11-21 — Page 13

11

-

I am not trying to pick on the heads of the departments that were involved in the rescue operation, I am sure all of them have done their very best, but in a major disaster of this kind, inter-departmental efforts have to be co-ordinated by some party. I would like to know who was responsible for that last night. And if there was no overall co-ordinator last night, would you in the upcoming review consider setting up such a co-ordinating mechanism so that in future heaven forbid of course - if a similar disaster occurs and inter-departmental efforts are called for, a co-ordinator will be there to co-ordinate all the efforts?

-

Governor: Can I first of all say once again that I think the honourable member and I are at one in recognising that important pieces of legislation cannot simply be ushered through the Legislative Council on the nod, they require thorough deliberation and discussion in the Council. As I said to the honourable gentleman, I think we need to strike a sensible balance.

On the second point, perhaps I can let the honourable lady know exactly how this emergency was handled in terms of departmental co-ordination in due course. It is obviously one of the issues that will come out of the investigation. We do regularly review our emergency arrangements and carry out tests of them from time to time. We did so only recently. So I think we are capable of handling emergencies pretty well, although we can always do better.

In this particular case, when I arrived on the scene the Director of Fire Services and the Secretary for Security were both on the spot. There were senior police officers on the spot and of course the District Officer but the actual fire-fighting was under the command of one of the Director of Fire Services' senior deputies. I do not think there was a problem of co-ordination between the various emergency services but I can let the honourable lady have a detailed reply to that in due course.

Mrs Selina Chow (in Chinese): In the past when these disasters occurred, everyone knew that all government departments would do their utmost to rescue people but very often the problem arose out of the issue of co-ordination. I hope that in the upcoming review you will really concentrate on this particular point because, really, we would want very good co-ordination so that there would not be any chaos.

And also, in terms of information dissemination, there'll also be co-ordinated efforts being made so that everyone will feel assured. I hope that in your upcoming review you are going to concentrate on this point because in the past comments have been made.