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CHINA DERBY DAY CATASTROPHE r Temporary Stands at Happy Valley Track Burn and 1 Twelve Hundred Persons Lose Their Lives. The tremendous Derby day catastrophe at Hongkong. China. February 20 last, in which 1.200 persons " h»st their lives, took dace in the temporary grandstands of tin- race track at Happy Valley, • when this was loaded with iieople. The stands collapsed " and the frail wooden structures look fire. The Hongkong races are the great society and sporting " event of southern China and the park was s thronged with people. The stands were built to accommodate Chinese p spectators at the race*. According to the custom 1 the sites are sold by tlie Jockey Club to persons who ■ arc allowed to erect stands for spectators, to whom they sell admissions at anything from §1 up. Tin-stands ■ are built adjoining one another of bamboo ] and matting, with plank flooring. These stands had J a floor that was about ten feet above the ground at 1 the rack and then sloped up toward the back of the ■ structure, and on this the spectators stood and sat. while the space below was used for cooking for refreshments. One of the stands broke down and the panic j spread to the resi. Tlie lianihoo and matting fell 1 on the cooking plant and the whoie took fire with " terrible loss of life. The temporary stands are erected on ground that is used at other times by the Hongkong tlolf flub and the Inited States ■ Service flub. The Jockey club has a concrete grandstand fur the use of Europeans. It is believed that tlie disaster will result iu the prohibition of the building of bamboo stands and that t hereafter only concrete stands will be authorised. I Tlie interpreter of the American consulate at Hongkong was among those killed. Several Europeans ,. employed in various Hongkong offices also „ lost their lives. —
