On this day | Landslip in Hong Kong’s Kennedy Town kills 3 people in 1994 – from the SCMP archive
- On this day 30 years ago, heavy rain washed away a slope in Hong Kong, killing three people and forcing 2,000 families to evacuate
This article was first published on July 24, 1994
Three die in landslip
A man and his nine-year-old daughter were among three people killed on July 23, 1994 when a retaining wall below one of Hong Kong’s biggest housing estates collapsed on to a busy footpath.
Emergency services immediately evacuated 2,000 families from the 20-year-old, 21-storey Kwun Lung Lau Estate building in Smithfield Road, Kennedy Town, fearing that it might collapse.
Also killed was another man, 26-year-old Ng Yuk-wing. Early this morning emergency services were still searching the mud and rocks for more trapped pedestrians.
Among the injured were two other members of the dead man and girl’s family - the 33-year-old mother and her 15-year-old son. Both were in fair condition at Queen Mary Hospital.
Witnesses said the collapse, at about 8.30pm, was heralded by a noise like a bomb exploding. It was followed by screams for help.
It left an eight-metre-high pile of rubble and mud sprawling over the footpath and an adjacent sitting area.
