Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1954-1955 — Page 53

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fire victims was kept in being, and during the year under review it was responsible for resettling 56,000 persons, practically all of them in Shek Kip Mei and Tai Hang Tung. There was also a form of emergency clearance for which the squatter patrols were responsible. These clearances were for the most part related to the urgent need for fire lanes and usually consisted of the removal of wooden huts to higher levels on the hillsides without any offer of resettlement. During the year the squatter patrols carried out eleven of these emergency clearances in- volving over 5,000 squatters.

63. In the course of orthodox clearances carried out by the Mobile Resettlement Unit, emergency clearances carried out by the squatter patrols and fire victim resettlement operations, a total of 79,000 former squatters passed through the department's hands in the course of the year. Of this number 58,500 were the victims of various fires, 8,500 were squatters cleared from fire lanes, and the remaining 12,000 were squatters cleared from land required for permanent development. At the beginning of 1955 there had come a change in priorities. Most of the street sleeper fire victims had been resettled and fire lanes had broken up the worst remaining fire risks. It was most unlikely that any single fire could now claim more than 5,000 victims. In January, 1955, Government announced its intention, subject to over- riding financial considerations, of carrying out a large-scale multi-storey resettlement programme in the course of which perhaps as many as 150,000 squatters would be cleared and resettled. But the sites for these multi-storey estates were still occupied by squatters and their clearance had to be given priority over the resettlement of fire victims. Early in 1955 the emphasis shifted from fire victims and fire lanes to orthodox clearance and resettlement operations undertaken by the Mobile Resettlement Unit.

64. During the latter half of 1954 the Mobile Resettlement Unit had been gaining experience. Its first real test had been the clearance in August and September of five fire lanes through

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