Pedestrians in the tourist hot spot of Tsim Sha Tsui got a spectacle of a slightly more hazardous kind this afternoon when a domed structure outside a luxury shopping mall burst into flames.
Firefighters arrived outside 1881 Heritage on Canton Road at around 12:50pm after receiving a report that the domed birdcage-like structure at the entrance of the mall had caught fire.
According to RTHK, a preliminary investigation found that a wire on one of the structure’s spotlights had short-circuited, causing one of the decorative ornaments on the structure to catch fire.
Video posted by on.cc shows dozens of passers-by gathering around the burning structure to film and photograph the conflagration.
Firefighters managed to put out the blaze in about 10 minutes. No one was injured, and emergency services did not need to evacuate anyone from the premises.
The mall used to be a former marine police headquarters from the 1880s until 1996. In 2003, it was renovated into a luxury shopping mall with restaurants and a hotel as part of a government effort to encourage private companies to help with conservation efforts by preserving old buildings and revamping them into commercial properties.
Reader Interactions