‘Shoppers fled in terror’– when Hong Kong department store Daimaru was rocked by explosion
- Daimaru, one of the city’s largest department stores, was the scene of a massive blast caused by a gas leak
- A fireman and a cashier lost their lives in the incident and more than 300 people were injured
“Hundreds of Saturday afternoon shoppers fled in terror yesterday when a massive explosion ripped through one of Hongkong’s largest department stores,” reported the South China Morning Post on October 15, 1972.
“Killed in the blast were a fireman, Wong Bong-wong, 42; and a woman cashier at the store, Wong Wai-shao, 30,” the report went on. About 300 people were injured by the explosion, which occurred in the Daimaru department store, in Causeway Bay, at 2.40pm, “during a peak shopping hour”.
“Shoppers, many of them women and young children, fled in panic as the explosion brought down a wall and sent shattered glass flying in every direction. The walls, shelves and floors of the store were splattered with blood. So was the road outside.”
The explosion was caused by a gas leak. Firefighters, including Wong, were “working to stem the gas flow when the explosion occurred”.
A funeral was held for Wong the cashier on October 18. The following day, a funeral procession was held for Wong the fireman, during which “scores of firemen wept” and “thousands of people lined the roadside and watched in sorrow as the cortege” moved from Causeway Bay to Wan Chai Fire Station.
An inquest into the deaths heard how two Hongkong and China Gas Company employees and three labourers sent to fix the gas leak had done so using an “unauthorised method”, resulting in the cutting of a “live” pipe, the Post reported on December 28.