Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1954-1955 — Page 27

squatter fire of the Colony's history. It was estimated at the time that nearly 24,000 persons had lost their homes. Detailed documentation, which took place much later, indicated that the true figure was nearer 18,000.

27. There ensued a melancholy repetition of the events which had followed the Shek Kip Mei fire. The streets of Shamshuipo, which had just been cleared of the victims of the earlier fire, were again filled with temporary shacks. The cost of direct relief measures-unproductive but unavoidable-was again running at about $40,000 a day. The possibility of developing the new fire site with permanent resettlement build- ings was urgently examined by the Public Works Department. The resettlement of the remaining Shek Kip Mei fire victims, some 20,000, was deferred and those of the new fire victims who were encamped on the streets were given precedence for re- housing in the new six-storey buildings at Shek Kip Mei, which were fortunately nearing completion. By these means the situation was more or less restored by the end of the year-or it would have been, had there not occurred a number of additional fires which, whilst none was of the first magnitude, together caused the destruction of the dwellings of an additional 17,000 persons.

28. The official fire season opened briskly on 1st October, 1954 with two quite serious fires, one at Li Cheng Uk in Sham- shuipo, and one at Tin Hau Temple Road, Causeway Bay. Each was held and extinguished on a recently constructed fire lane. The majority of the persons affected by both fires took refuge on the streets, awaiting resettlement. In December, 1954, and January, 1955, two squatter fires occurred in Hung Hom, and in the course of November, 1954, there were three fires in the Tai Po Road squatter area which led to an important reappraisal of the policy towards squatter fires and fire victims.

29. The Tai Po Road squatter area was perhaps the one best known to the general public. Its close-packed wooden shacks lined the east side of the main New Territories road for two hundred yards and in places overhung its embankment in

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