The authorities have ordered a Tsim Sha Tsui hotel to inspect all of their windows after one of them fell from the building and killed a passer-by earlier this week.
The Buildings Department (BD) inspected windows in several rooms at the Mira Hong Kong yesterday and found no obvious danger, though inspectors did find signs of oxidation in some of the rivets securing the windows, Ming Pao reports.
The department issued an inspection order to the owners of the hotel under the Buildings Ordinance, which means that the owners have to appoint an authorized person to survey the building’s windows, submit a report, and arrange for remedial works within a month.
The inspection came after a 39-year-old cleaner working at the hotel opened a window in order to air out a room on the 16th floor on Monday morning. But when she did so, the window fell, striking a 24-year-old mainland tourist named Zuo Shaofeng, who was rushed to the hospital and later declared dead.
Police intially arrested the cleaner for allowing an object to fall from a height, but she was later released on bail and has to report back to the police station in February. It remains unclear whether she or the hotel will face charges.
Apple Daily, citing a Mira Hong Kong spokesperson, reports that the cleaner is currently on leave, and that the hotel would provide her with assistance in the event that she is prosecuted.
Two of Zuo’s cousins were in the city yesterday to identify Zuo’s body at the mortuary.
Zuo’s brother told Apple Daily that his sister was a hardworking woman who seldom took time off to travel.
He told the newspaper that he and his sister were raised in a single-parent household after their father died in a car accident while his mother was pregnant with his sister.
Since then, he said, his sister had worked hard at school and college, and eventually rose to a management position at a kindergarten in the city of Guangzhou, in Guangdong province.
He told the newspaper that his sister and her boyfriend, who was in Hong Kong with her at the time and sustained minor injuries from the window, were planning on getting married after Chinese New Year.
