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CHINA DERBY DAY CATASTROPHE Temporary Stands at Happy Valley Track Burn and Twelve Hundred Persons Lose Their Lives. The tremendous Derby day catastrophe at Hongkong. China. February 20 last, in which 1.200 persons lost their lives, took place in the temporary grandstands of the race track at Happy Valley, when this was loaded with people. The stands col-I ipsed and the frail wooden structures took fire. The Hongkong races are the great society and sporting event of southern China and tin- park was thronged with people. The stands were built to accommodate Chinese spectators at the races. According to the custom the sites are sold bv the Jockey Club to persons who are allowed to erect stands for spectators, to whom they sell admissions at anything from up. The stands are built adjoining one another of bamboo and matting, with plank flooring. These stands had a floor that was about ten feet above the ground at 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 spread to the rest. The bamboo and matting fell on the cooking plant and the whole took fire with terrible loss of life. The temporary stands are erected on ground that is used at other times by the Hongkong Golf Club and the United States Service Club. The Jockey club has a concrete grandstand for the use of Europeans. It is be lieved that the disaster will result in the prohibition of the building of bamlioo stands and that hereafter only concrete stands will lie authorized. The interpreter of the American consulate at Hongkong was among those killed. Several Europeans employed in various Hongkong offices also lost their lives.
