The Happy Valley Racecourse Fire A Short Documentary Fascinating Horror

On February 26, 1918, thousands of people arrived at Happy Valley Racecourse in Hong Kong, to watch the second day of the annual Derby. The event was so popular that dozens of additional booths – equipped with food stalls, bars and betting stations – were set up to accommodate the crowds. However, it was these additional facilities that ultimately led to one of the worst disasters in the history of the sport. Happy Valley Racecourse was built in 1845, in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong. Great Britain took control of Hong Kong as a colony in 1842, when the Treaty of Nanking was signed following the war between the British Empire and China.

At this point, horse racing was not a popular sport in Hong Kong, but the British expatriates who had settled there wanted to bring one of their favorite pastimes with them. The first ever horse races in Hong Kong were held at Happy Valley.

The site itself was built on what was once a swamp. It was a flat piece of land surrounded by hills. It’s gorgeous now, but it was less so then.

In the 1840s, the British Army used the area as an army camp, but it was closed after too many soldiers died from malaria. The area was then used as a cemetery. The name “Happy Valley” was invented by British soldiers with a sick sense of humour, as the area was known to be a place where many people died or were buried. By 1845, the British decided to build a racetrack at Happy Valley. It has proven to be an incredibly popular place, among locals as well as Brits.

As racing grew in popularity there, the facilities at the site were gradually upgraded. It has been transformed from a dirt track dug into the swamps into a world-class sporting venue and community centre. A special event is held every year to mark the start of the racing season at Happy Valley. It was a three-day race in February, featuring some of the best horses from all over Asia.

It has always been a popular meet, and by the early 1900s, organizers began installing temporary stands just for this event, to accommodate up to 3,000 additional spectators.

These terraces were called canopies, and were made of bamboo and palm leaves – common for lightweight or temporary structures throughout China and Hong Kong at the time. Some sheds have three floors and can accommodate up to 300 people. There was usually space for food and drink stalls on the ground or in the basement, while the upper sections offered great views of the track. Food stalls generally use charcoal fires to cook food, or to boil water for cups of tea. For the 1918 meeting, nineteen ranks were erected in about three weeks, most of them by Chinese contractors.

The structures were supported by bamboo or wood planks that were buried in the ground, or nailed to nearby trees or buildings. Some were supported by matches on both sides. Commercially, washyards were run by so-called “men of note” – landowners, stockbrokers, tavern owners, and so on – each of whom paid a fee to the government for a license to do so. Since the license cost HK$706, plus about HK$180 for construction costs, the cost of running the farm increased to more than the average annual salary of most colony residents at the time.

This was a big job.

Safety checks were carried out a few days before the event. Police and fire personnel were responsible for this, but inspections were often delegated to junior students. These young, inexperienced employees rarely highlight anything that might pose a risk. The opening day of the derby on February 25 passed without incident. On February 26, thousands of people returned for another day of racing.

People from all over Hong Kong were in attendance: the British, Chinese, Indian and Portuguese communities were well represented. Often whole families would attend together: children, although unable to gamble, were still welcome to enjoy the racing. After the morning races finished, there was a ‘lunch’ break: an opportunity for spectators to buy food and place bets before the afternoon races. However, as the horses emerged and headed toward the starting line for one of the most anticipated races of the day, a scream was heard from one of the racers. This was followed by a rush of people frantically fleeing from the stands.

The reason quickly became clear to most observers. Two of the placemats, numbers six and seven, began to sway. The ensuing collapse was witnessed by a Hong Kong Daily Press correspondent, who wrote: “The stands gradually fell…Outward… making a sound like the rattle of a saw. It was as if the tops of all the terraces were connected by a wire… and that this…

[was used] to gradually pull them down. It took about ten seconds for the stands and booths to collapse. Since many of the stands were relying on neighboring stands for support, the collapse began a domino effect. When one runway fell, it brought down the next, and the next.

Before anyone could react, a large section of the temporary bleachers collapsed, creating a pile of wood and bamboo that trapped up to 3,000 people underneath.

In the immediate aftermath, there was a moment of relative calm. People struggled to free themselves or rescue others. There was of course a great deal of confusion and urgent activity, but no sense of panic. But minutes later, white smoke began rising from the wreckage. Coal fires from the food and drink stalls set the fallen block of wood on fire.

It was a dry winter, and as the winds picked up, the fires spread quickly. The audience reacted with horror. The Hong Kong Daily Press correspondent went on to say: “The outbreak caused a terrible panic…

Hundreds were thrown to the ground and would have had no difficulty escaping otherwise. Once down [it was] finished. The clouds of smoke…

must have been It suffocated many. “The children were swept away , and I fear many of them were trampled to death…” Hundreds of people desperately rushed to rescue the trapped family members, but the fire was spreading so quickly that it was almost impossible and after only five minutes, it was hot So people couldn’t get close to the wreckage.

A boy named Paolo Xavier saw his sister Daria trapped under some bamboo poles. He tried to dig her out even as the rubble around them caught fire, but finally gave up when his sister asked him to leave and save himself The same family, Benno Xavier, initially escaped the collapse, but realized he had left the cash box in his family’s betting booth and rushed back to retrieve it, but became trapped by more falling debris, and was never able to get out Local firefighters attended the event, but they had neither a fire engine nor hoses.

A human chain was formed to carry water, in buckets, from a tap at a nearby golf club, while people waited for fire and rescue equipment to arrive. This took about fifteen minutes, and by then it was already too late for many of those trapped in the wreckage. Even when hoses were brought to the scene, there was very little water available to adequately fight the fire.

Within twenty minutes of the collapse, the entire identical section of the racetrack was engulfed in flames.

Within forty-five minutes, he was reduced to ash. Officially, 614 bodies have been recovered, although some records state that as many as 687 people died in the fire. Several hundred others were injured. The victims were mostly Chinese women and children.

Mass services were held in Hong Kong, Macau and cities across China. This tragedy, although difficult to overcome, resonated with communities everywhere. In the resulting coroner’s inquest, he concluded that the disaster could have been prevented, “by the exercise of foresight, foresight which one might have reasonably expected before the event and which would certainly have been easier to anticipate after the event”. In particular, the combination of lightweight temporary stands and coal fires directly below them were thought to pose a danger that could have been foreseen. Hong Kong’s governor, Sir Francis Henry May, took responsibility for the disaster, saying: “I blame myself for not providing fire precautions, because I was chief of police here for nine years and I never expected a fire to break out.” At these matches.” He banned the use of temporary stands, and construction of permanent stands began soon after. They were ready in time for the derby the following year.

This event featured a larger police presence, smaller crowds and the presence of more firefighters and firefighting equipment throughout. In In 1922, a memorial was erected in memory of the dead, and it still stands today.

Happy Valley Racecourse remains a major attraction in Hong Kong, now with a capacity of 55,000 people, and has not seen another collapse or major fire since the fire that claimed the lives of so many innocents. February of 1918.

https://www.coolmarketingsoftware.com/a/aff/go/betonzi54?i=16

https://trafficleadsnsales.com/storage/2021/10/300New-Power-Headlines.pdf