Smart Barrier boosting slope safety
The Civil Engineering & Development Department installed a Smart Barrier in Tsuen Wan last July to help shield Hong Kong from increasingly harsh weather.
Speaking to the media today about slope safety, the department's Geotechnical Engineering Office Deputy Head (Island) Au Yeung Yan-sang said climate change has brought devastating storms to various parts of the world in recent years.
The Smart Barrier is a detection system mounted on debris-resistant barriers to monitor and predict landslides.
Mr Au Yeung said: "What we can do is to prepare for the worst. So (this is) why we developed the Smart Barrier, to make us better prepared for extreme landslides, extreme events.
"The critical objective of the Smart Barrier is to help us to predict where an imminent major landslide (will) occur.
"The earlier we could predict where it (will) occur, the more time we could prepare for the extreme event.
"If we have that sort of information, we can reduce the consequence of such a major landslide."
He reminded pedestrians to stay away from slopes and for motorists to avoid driving in hilly areas when the Landslip Warning is in force.
There were 152 reported landslides in Hong Kong last year, almost half the annual average of 300.