DT Communications to help HK Buildings Department solve PR crisis

DT Communications will carry out a multi-pronged plan to increase the awareness of building safety in Hong Kong for the next year. That includes online and offline strategies that involve age-specific seminars and exhibitions to provide building safety education to real-estate developers, children and the general public.

The Hong Kong buildings department went through a PR crisis in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ma Tau Wai Road tenement that took the lives of four people. Families of the victims said both the buildings department and the building's owner had been delinquent in ensuring safety of the property in question.

In response, a buildings department spokesman stressed that it is the "owners' basic responsibility, which they cannot shirk, to maintain the safety of their properties". The department does call on them to "regularly inspect and repair their buildings," he added.