The Labour Department said on Monday it would include monitoring stations in nine more locations to better decide whether to issue a Heat Stress at Work Warning.

Established in 2023, the heat-warning system requires employers to provide people who work outdoors or in indoor environments without air-conditioning with hourly rest periods when a warning is in effect.

The warning is divided into Amber, Red and Black to indicate the level of heat stress.

At present, the department only issues such warnings based on data from the Observatory’s monitoring station at King’s Park.

Starting next Monday, it will issue a heat warning if any four of the 10 stations monitoring stations indicate a need even if King's Park readings do not encourage such an issuance.

One of the nine stations are located at the Observatory headquarters in Tsim Sha Tsui, with the rest being at Beas River, Chek Lap Kok, Happy Valley, Kau Sai Chau, Kowloon Bay, Sha Tin, Wetland Park and Wong Chuk Hang.

“I believe with the increasing number of stations, we are able to take a more comprehensive look at the heat-stress situation in Hong Kong and provide more up-to-date and accurate information to the public in the prevention of heat stress,” said Vincent Fung, deputy labour commissioner in charge of occupational safety and health.

The Labour Department also reaffirmed its commitment to promoting the use of technology to enhance occupational safety.

As part of its efforts in this regard, it plans to start deploying small unmanned vehicles in the second half to help carry out safety inspections of high-risk confined spaces.

One of the vehicles’ abilities is carrying air quality monitoring equipment into confined spaces to conduct tests to detect the level of harmful gases such as hydrogen sulphide.

Images captured by the vehicles can be used to construct real-time 3D models, while labour security personnel can also observe the scene directly though the cameras.

The department added that last year it conducted 184 inspections of confined spaces and issued 13 warnings but did not issue any improvement notices or initiate any prosecutions.


Edited by Edmond Fong