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1. The fire

Submitted by Admin on Sat, 03/21/2015 - 17:20

This guest post is written by David Twynham. Please click here for the background to this post.

Introduction

 On 26 February 1918, just after the running of the Derby at Happy Valley Racecourse, Hong Kong, a long bamboo matshed set up beside the course on a temporary basis for the highly popular annual three day racing programme and holding an estimated 3,000 spectators at the time, collapsed ‘like a pack of cards’ and fire was seen to break out.  

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