Woman killed in Hong Kong street after window falls out of 16th-floor hotel room in busy Tsim Sha Tsui district
Woman from mainland China had just arrived in city was walking outside the hotel made famous by Edward Snowden when she was hit
Hong Kong Police believe the window fell from the 16th floor of The Mira Hong Kong Hotel.A 25-year-old woman from mainland China has died after being hit by a window that fell out of room on the 16th floor of a Hong Kong hotel.
The victim, who a police source said arrived in the city on Monday morning from Foshan, Guangdong, with her boyfriend and some friends, was walking along Nathan Road in the busy shopping district of Tsim Sha Tsui when she was struck outside The Mira Hong Kong shortly before 10.30am.
She was rushed to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei but died at 12.16pm, a Hospital Authority spokesman said.
A police source said an initial investigation showed the window was being cleaned just before it fell out, and officers are understood to have arrested a 38-year-old female hotel cleaner in connection with the incident.
The Mira Hong Kong offered its condolences and said it was helping police investigate. “We will make every effort to assist her [the victim’s] family,” the hotel said in a statement.
The incident occurred near the junction with Kimberley Road, opposite Kowloon Park, and about 300 metres from Tsim Sha Tsui Police Station. “Initial investigations show that a woman was hit by a falling window,” a police spokeswoman said. “She was injured in the head and was knocked unconscious.”
A section of the pavement, and Nathan Road heading southbound towards Tsim Sha Tsui, has been cordoned off by police.
The Mira Hong Kong was the centre of global attention in 2013, when NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden spent three weeks staying there before fleeing the city for Russia.