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Hong Kong 'Stampede'
A promotion involving ``crystal'' mahjong
gift sets turned to chaos when thousands of people who had queued for hours to
collect the pieces stampeded when it started to rain.
Scuffles broke out on Sunday as the crowd
harassed queue-jumpers outside the China Resources Building, Wan Chai.
As the rain came down, order collapsed with
some jumping the queue and others scrambling for cover. In the melee, people
were pushed to the ground and at least three women who complained of feeling
unwell were sent to hospital.
Several children were separated from their
parents and police were called in to restore order.
More than 100 people started queuing late on
Saturday night, and by early Sunday the queue was snaking back to Wan Chai
sportsground.
Chaos broke out on the final day for mahjong
sets to be distributed as part of a marketing campaign by a brewery company.
Since last month, the company has handed out more than 10,000 of the acrylic
sets, redeemable for 12 beer bottle caps and HK$108.
In Central, there was a more orderly queue of
at least 100 at the General Post Office to buy special stamps commemorating the
centenary of Deng Xiaoping's birth.
They were issued by Hong Kong Post, China Post and Macau Post.
The Wan Chai mahjong madness was not the
first such frenzy to sweep Hong Kong.
One of the more recent episodes of unruly
queues occurred last year for the visit of Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei, when
13,000 free tickets were snapped up within 25 minutes.
Rumours of closures of banks, and even a cake
shop, have sparked hysterical scenes in Hong Kong.
In one of the most notorious incidents, in
1998 the territory was swept by a craze for Snoopy dolls that were part of a
McDonald's promotion.
Thousands of men, women and children queued
through the night to pay HK$6 for a set meal and one of the 28 different plastic
pooches, with some scalpers realising up to HK$300 on resales.
- By Sylvia Hui HONG
KONG STANDARD 23 August 2004
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