Special Services

The department also provides wide-ranging rescue services in incidents
such as traffic accidents, people trapped in lifts or locked rooms, gas
leakage, house collapses, flooding, landslides, industrial accidents and
attempts to jump from a height. The department handled 20 899 special
service calls in 1997.

Major incidents included the crash of a floral parade vehicle in Tsim Sha
Tsui on February 7 in which one person died and 31 others were injured;
the immersion of a fishing vessel off Ap Lei Chau on September 27 in
which three people trapped inside the vessel were killed; the leakage of
toxic gas in a Kowloon Bay unit on October 17, in which seven people
were injured, including five firemen; and spillage of sodium cyanide from
a lorry travelling along Tai Po Road near Kam Shan Country Park on
December 4.

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