国内英语新闻:HK to inspect 4,000 "over aged" buildings after collapse incident

HONG KONG, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Plans of extensive and comprehensive inspection of roughly 4,000 buildings aged 50 years and over will be carried out in a month, said the website of the HK Special Administrative Regional government on Saturday after a building collapse incident.

"This is a comprehensive check across the territory of all the buildings of this age, which we believed are more or less of similar construction, which is reinforced concrete framed construction," said Secretary for Development, Carrie Lam, after inspecting the scene of the building collapse case in Ma Tau Wai Road Saturday.

A five-story apartment building of more than 50 years old in Hung Hom, Hong Kong's Kowloon district, collapsed suddenly around 1:30 p.m. local time ( 0530 GMT) Friday afternoon. Four people were confirmed dead and two others injured.

"we are going to set up 40 teams of professional and technical staff to go out to various parts of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories to inspect these 4,000 buildings. The target is to complete these comprehensive inspection within a month. We will then follow up with the needed remedial action," she added.

Carrie Lam also mentioned she was going to introduce into the Legislative Council a new piece of legislation concerning mandatory inspection of Hong Kong's buildings over 30 years old and also mandatory inspection of windows for buildings aged 10 years and over.