Hong Kong should ban the use of bamboo scaffolding in light of this week's deadly collapse, the chairman of a Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) safety panel said on Wednesday.

Two workers were killed and three injured on Tuesday when bamboo scaffolding fell from the 19th storey of a residential building under construction in Kai Tak.

Joseph Chi, who chairs the HKIE's safety specialist committee, told RTHK that bamboo scaffolding is harder to assess during inspections than its metal equivalent.

“All the bamboo members are not uniform. Some are thicker, some are thinner, some are in different shapes et cetera. It is not easy to structurally assess the string of the bamboo. I would suggest actually banning the bamboo system,” Chi said.

“The life of the metal scaffolding is longer, less affected by the weather conditions. While for bamboo scaffolding, if the construction period is long, for example, a few years, then the bamboo would be weather attacked, so that would not be that appropriate.”

Chi added that the construction industry has already started phasing out the use of bamboo scaffolding for large-scale projects.