ENG-1969 — Page 223

PUBLIC ORDER

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25 per cent to a record $20 million. This phenomenon is not peculiar to Hong Kong and is being generally experienced by most western countries as a concomitant of rapid industrialisation, export drives, technical progress and rising living standards. It is a disturbing commentary that in the past 10 years the total direct fire losses in Hong Kong, though well below the average for similarly developed communities, have amounted to around $90 million or sufficient to have financed the proposed airport runway extension.

The known casualties from fire during the year were 28 deaths and 605 injuries including one fireman killed and 186 other mem- bers of the service injured in the execution of their duty. No less than 3,805 persons were physically rescued by firemen from fires and other calamities and several hundred more were led to safety from dangerous situations.

The Fire Prevention Bureau, which is statutorily responsible for the enforcement of fire safety regulations throughout the Colony, carried out an average of 18,000 advisory visits and inspec- tions per month to factories, shops, offices, schools, places of public entertainment, etc, and advised architects and engineers on a total of 3,000 development plans. By way of comparison in 1959, only 8,641 inspections were made during the whole of that year. The ever-increasing workload on the bureau has necessitated augment- ing staff in several of its units and the current accretion of the building industry is reflected not so much in the numbers of plans submitted but in the burgeoning cost and complexity of projects now underway.

The Ambulance Service, which since 1953 has operated under the Control of the Fire Services Department, now operates 62 ambulances throughout the Colony attending approximately 65,000 calls each year. New duty systems recently introduced have increased availability of ambulances during peak periods and at the same time enabled the working hours of crews to be reduced from 72 to 57 hours each week.

THE PREVENTIVE SERVICE

The Preventive Service of the Commerce and Industry Depart- ment is a uniformed and disciplined force of 908 officers responsible for those measures which in a customs-controlled port are handled