For the first time, veteran sailor Thomas Wong Kam-chuen and his partners set sail from Hong Kong on their 46-foot yacht on a two-day trip earlier this month to a holiday island in Zhuhai, testing the waters for more leisure travel to mainland China. After a five-hour voyage from the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter on…
Inadequate monitoring, lengthy repairs and poor information for hikers are among the “deficiencies” that have undermined public safety and visitors’ experience at Hong Kong’s country parks, according to the city’s ombudsman, which urged relevant authorities to overhaul how they manage and maintain facilities. In a report released on Monday, the Office of the Ombudsman said…
Hong Kong should urgently address its bottlenecks in developing a yacht economy by improving immigration procedures, upgrading mooring facilities and curating niche tourism itineraries following Beijing’s policy relaxation on yachts from the city sailing to mainland China, industry leaders have said. Their calls came on Saturday after Beijing allowed Hong Kong and Macau yachts to…
An outlying island ferry struck a barrier at a typhoon shelter in Hong Kong shortly after midnight on Monday, with passengers recalling being jolted and struggling to retrieve life jackets as they were stranded on the vessel for more than an hour. The small crowd was returning home on Mother’s Day on Sunday and caught…
Mainland Chinese tourists may have come for the tombolo but left with a deeper understanding of Hong Kong’s coral reefs and marine life after the government stepped up promotion and protection efforts on Sharp Island in Sai Kung. That was the view of visitors touring the island on Friday morning, Labour Day – a Hong…
A barge carrying recycled metal caught fire at the New Yau Ma Tei Public Cargo Working Area in Hong Kong early on Friday, marking the second similar blaze at the site in less than a week and prompting renewed calls by a lawmaker for stronger oversight and safety measures. The Fire Services Department said it…
Relatives of the 39 victims in one of Hong Kong’s deadliest maritime disasters expressed anger after the coroner overseeing an inquest said it was “impractical and unrealistic” for them to expect inspectors could have spotted a missing watertight door if they had examined the ship’s structural drawings. Coroner Monica Chow Wai-choo said on Thursday, the…
Alice Leung Shuk-ling has spent more than a decade seeking the truth behind a ferry crash in 2012 that killed her younger brother and 38 others, and she expects a Coroner’s Court verdict due Wednesday to be merely an ellipsis – not a full stop – in her quest. Leung, 40, said she never expected…
The Coroner’s Court is expected to deliver a long-awaited verdict on Wednesday for an inquest into one of Hong Kong’s deadliest maritime disasters, in which 39 residents died after a collision between two ferries near Lamma Island in 2012. After the government commissioned an inquiry into the causes of the tragedy later that year, families…
A man has drowned after jumping off a boat that had run aground and started to list during a fishing trip in the waters off Hong Kong’s eastern New Territories. The angler, 47, and his friend set off along Lam Tsuen River aboard a seven-metre-long (23-foot-long) sampan at around 10.30pm on Monday during the Mid-Autumn…