HONG KONG: Installation of surveillance cameras will be accelerated in the hope further acid attacks on pedestrians in Mong Kok will cease, or the culprit will be apprehended.

The government pledged that the cameras will be in operation within a month in the wake of a second acid attack Saturday, that left 30 passersby suffering acid burns.

Yau Tsim Mong district councilors yesterday lashed out at the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department for causing unnecessary delays in plans to set up the closed-circuit television system on Sai Yeung Choi Street South.

Saturday's attack took place in a busy pedestrian area outside Ginza Plaza, where 14 women and 16 men were injured after being splashed by the contents of two bottles of suspected corrosive acid thrown from a building.

The weekend outrage occurred about 150 meters from the scene of a similar attack on the same street last December that left 46 people suffering burns.

Speaking after a district council special meeting yesterday, Wong Wai-man, the department's electronics and data communications manager, promised to have the cameras fitted in a month but declined to specify an exact date for security reasons.

"We will speed up the installation and testing (of the surveillance cameras) in response to public demands," he said. "It will be done in a month."

Councilor Hau Wing-cheong said the district council had approved in March HK$1.7 million to fund the installation of cameras that offered high-quality pictures.

The Electrical and Mechanical Services Department was responsible for inviting tenders to carry out the work in June, said Hau.

Councilor Henry Chan Man-yu said: "The department has totally let people down. Do you feel guilty of dragging your heels over this?"

Another councilor Chan Wai-keung criticized the government for shifting the responsibility for installing the surveillance system to the district council.

Vicki Kwok Wong Wing-ki, Yau Tsim Mong district officer of the Home Affairs Department, said the government decided to let the district council handle the installation work as the procedure for funding applications from the council was more flexible than the procedures applying to government.

Hau also urged the police to step up patrols in the area and called on private buildings to set up owners' corporations or mutual aid committees as soon as possible so as to reinforce security.

A Home Affairs Department spokesman said 46 of 105 buildings on Sai Yeung Choi Street South had no owners' corporations or mutual aid committees.

Hau said eight cameras would be fitted in the Park-in Commercial Centre and Hollywood Plaza in Mong Kok capable of recording anyone tossing objects from height.

Council chairman Edmond Chung Kong-mo said that viewing of video recordings would be restricted and would not be permitted without the approval of local authorities.

The Kowloon West crime unit continued its probe at the scene of the attack yesterday.

All victims of the weekend attack have been released from hospitals, with the exception of a 16-year-old girl. She remains in stable condition.

(HK Edition 05/19/2009 page1)