ENG-1964 — Page 202

PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

175

Western District, an extension to the Public Works Department depot at Caroline Hill and a block of service flats in Hong Kong. Designs and detailed drawings for some 67 projects were in hand at the end of the year; among them a hospital for some 1,300 beds at Lai Chi Kok, a new office building of 200,000 square feet floor area, two large abattoirs, a Fire Services Training School and a depot for the Police Training Contingent.

DRAINAGE

All the urban areas and nearly all the newly developed towns have water-borne sewerage systems. As many of the sewers in the urban areas were constructed 50 or more years ago, their capacity is no longer adequate to serve the large blocks of flats now being erected in place of much smaller buildings. The Public Works Department has commenced a rapid programme to replace them with larger mains so as to cope with the rapid rate of re-development of the urban areas. The nuisance from sewer outfalls at the seawalls is steadily being eliminated by intercepting sewers where the sewage is screened before discharging into the sea through deep submarine outfalls. Of the five schemes for the Kowloon peninsular, the Yau Ma Tei scheme is in complete operation, Kowloon south and Kowloon east schemes are in partial operation and the remaining two are in an advanced stage. Work on three of the five schemes on the Island was started and two of these three, Wan Chai and North Point, are in partial operation while the intercepting sewers in the Central scheme are almost, complete. Treatment and sewage disposal schemes were under investigation for Tsuen Wan, Yuen Long and Shek Wu Hui.

Extensive systems of culverts for surface drainage of the heavy summer rainfall have been constructed at resettlement estates and in new towns and work has progressed on flood control schemes in the New Territories. Improvements to the sewerage and drainage systems of small communities in outlying areas have been undertaken this year.

PORT WORKS

The year's typhoons caused fairly wide-spread damage to harbour installations, the New Territories and islands bearing the main brunt. The estimated cost of repairs to 88 piers, 26 seawalls, 19