‘Dark day for Hong Kong’s sports community’ narrowly avoided after CityU rooftop collapse
Hundreds of athletes were supposed to attend annual celebration banquet at the Chan Tai Ho Multi-purpose Hall on Saturday
City University athletes were still in a state of shock on Saturday – one day after the rooftop collapsed at the venue where they were supposed to attend their annual celebration.
Volleyball player Devin Chung Wai-sze was scheduled to join hundreds of other athletes at the Chan Tai Ho Multi-purpose Hall for the function, which had to be scrapped because of the incident. Dozens of other students who were also using the gym on Friday were affected.
“We could have all been killed at the celebration,” Chung, who was recently named volleyball player of the year by the University Sports Federation of Hong Kong, said.
“It would be not only be a dark day for our university, but for the whole sports community in Hong Kong as so many talented sportsmen may have died there.”
Chung’s teammate in both the university and Hong Kong teams, Vincent Wong Wing-chun, was in one of the gymnasiums in the building when the rooftop collapsed.
“A worker came into our room and said the rooftop had collapsed and we had to leave the building,” said Wong, a third year criminology student.
“We didn’t hear anything inside the gym room. I thought it was similar to the ‘indoor waterfall’ case of the Festival Walk some years ago … less than 20 people from the two gym rooms were evacuated. We were relaxed and didn’t run, and only realised how bad it was after we got out.”
Wong was due to be one of the masters of the ceremony in Saturday’s celebration, which has been postponed.
“We planned to present awards and scholarships to all our sports elites at about 4pm at Wei Hing Theatre [adjacent to the sports centre]. After that, we would proceed to the multi-purpose hall for the buffet dinner. I think we would have had at least 700 to 800 student athletes, coaches and guests in this party. We were really lucky,” Wong said.
He added that the hall was one of the biggest on the campus and the athletes now lacked a place to train.
“Handball teams will have no standard courts available while volleyball teams will have to find another venue,” he said.
Chung said the university’s management team should ensure everyone’s safety in campus.
“I believe in the initial standards of buildings, but what about those after modifications? There are so many constructions going on everywhere in CityU. I am really worried and wonder if the additional structures are safe,” he said.
