CS: Successful Stress Test at Huanggang Port, Improvement in Passenger Flow Management

Remarks by CS at media session after inspecting stress test of passenger and vehicular flows at Huanggang Port

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Chan Kwok-ki, met the media with the Secretary for Security, Mr Tang Ping-keung; the Secretary for Transport and Logistics, Ms Mable Chan; and the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mrs Ingrid Yeung, after inspecting the stress test of passenger and vehicular flows at Huanggang Port today (August 22). Following are the remarks of Mr Chan and Mr Tang:

Reporter: Good afternoon. Which part of today's drill involves co-operation from the Shenzhen authority, and what potential risks have been discovered in today's drill? Besides installing more signage, what other improvement works will you anticipate? Thank you.

Secretary for Security: First of all, regarding the co-operation with the Shenzhen side, I think, obviously, be it the e-Channel or the manual channel, actually our civil servants did go through the gates and did go through the real process. We are very grateful to the Shenzhen side for its co-operation. Talking about the signage, based on the experience of the exercise on the 15th of August, we have a significant improvement in terms of the signage, and through today's exercise, we identified some further improvement measures, for example, in how to set up lines for different buses or different transport. I think this is a further area for improvement.

Chief Secretary for Administration: I want to supplement that, overall, the drill has been very successful and was very smooth. I do not see or identify any potential risk so far.

Reporter: Firstly, how many gate machines were put into operation today for people crossing between Hong Kong and Shenzhen? And have all the machines' software been running normally? And have there been any issues? If so, how were they handled? And the second question is: some vehicle owners have reported traffic congestion on the roads from Sheung Shui to Guangdong vehicle lanes. How will this situation be improved and how will this be handled in actual future scenarios? Thank you.

Secretary for Security: For the immigration counters, today we have utilised about two-thirds of our overall counters, including the e-Channels or the manual channels. We actually did the going-through process and overall it was very smooth. We have noticed about the heavy traffic around this area. Actually, this is the purpose of the exercise to identify areas - we are talking about private car of about 1 000 trips, which is a very high volume in comparison with an ordinary situation. This is the purpose. We tried to push it to the limit. Although the traffic was relatively heavy, it's smooth.

Chief Secretary for Administration: I want to supplement that out of the 90 immigration counters and e-Channels (for each direction), 60 were used today. Although only two-thirds of the capacity, we can still see that the whole operation was very smooth and could handle all 10 000 passengers smoothly. For the remaining 30 immigration channels, we need some slight adjustments before they can be put into operation. So we are confident that when 90 of them are in full operation, we can handle all the passengers very smoothly.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the remarks.)

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Chan Kwok-ki, inspected the first stress test of passenger and vehicular flows with relevant units of Shenzhen at the Huanggang Port today (August 22). Photo shows Mr Chan (front row, second left) inspecting L2 Hall. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Chan Kwok-ki, inspected the first stress test of passenger and vehicular flows with relevant units of Shenzhen at the Huanggang Port today (August 22). Photo shows Mr Chan (second right) inspecting the public transport interchange. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Chan Kwok-ki, inspected the first stress test of passenger and vehicular flows with relevant units of Shenzhen at the Huanggang Port today (August 22). Photos shows Mr Chan (front row, second right) inspecting a simulation of customs checks. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Chan Kwok-ki, inspected the first stress test of passenger and vehicular flows with relevant units of Shenzhen at the Huanggang Port today (August 22). Photo shows Mr Chan (second left) inspecting the departure hall. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Chan Kwok-ki, inspected the first stress test of passenger and vehicular flows with relevant units of Shenzhen at the Huanggang Port today (August 22). Photo shows Mr Chan (third left) inspecting the departure hall. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Chan Kwok-ki, inspected the first stress test of passenger and vehicular flows with relevant units of Shenzhen at the Huanggang Port today (August 22). Photo shows Mr Chan (second right) inspecting the "joint one-stop" vehicle lane level. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Chan Kwok-ki, inspected the first stress test of passenger and vehicular flows with relevant units of Shenzhen at the Huanggang Port today (August 22). Photo shows Mr Chan (fifth left) inspecting the "joint one-stop" vehicle lane level. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Chan Kwok-ki, inspected the first stress test of passenger and vehicular flows with relevant units of Shenzhen at the Huanggang Port today (August 22). Photo shows (from left) the Secretary for Transport and Logistics, Ms Mable Chan; Mr Chan; the Secretary for Security, Mr Tang Ping-keung; and the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mrs Ingrid Yeung, meeting the media after inspecting the drill. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Wounding case in Central reclassified as murder

Police today (November 12) reclassified a wounding case in Central on November 7 as murder.

At 8.58pm on November 7, Police received a report that a man collapsed outside Connaught Place. Police officers sped to the scene and found a 41-year-old foreign man lying on the ground. Sustaining head injuries, he was rushed to Queen Mary Hospital in unconscious state. Initial investigation revealed that the man was suspectedly assaulted with fists and feet. The assailants then fled away.

Police arrested two foreign men, aged 44 and 52, for wounding in Kowloon City and Wan Chai respectively on November 8.

The two arrested men have been laid a holding charge with one count of "wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm ". The case was mentioned at Eastern Magistrates' Courts on November 10, and the two arrested men are remanded in the custody of the Correctional Services Department.

The injured man was certified dead this afternoon. Upon further investigation, Police reclassified the case as murder.

Post-mortem examinations will be conducted later to ascertain the cause of death of the deceased.

Active investigation by the District Crime Squad of Central District is underway.

Anyone who witnessed the case or has any information to offer is urged to contact the investigating officers on 3660 1218.

Source: AI-found images