Police Announce Road Closures For Christmas Eve

Police said on Friday they are expecting lots of revellers in Lan Kwai Fong and on the Kowloon harbourfront on Christmas Eve and crowd control measures will be put in place.

There will be road closures in Central, Tsim Sha Tsui and at the West Kowloon Cultural District from 2pm on Saturday, until the early hours of Sunday.

Officers said they may expand the closure areas depending on the actual situation, and people should use public transport to get around.

"In assessing the number of visitors to the Lan Kwai Fong area, we will adopt phase two [of road closures], and the time of that all depends on the number of visitors," said acting traffic superintendent Ho Kam-yee at a press conference.

He said sufficient manpower will be deployed to ensure safety so that everyone can have a good time after years of tighter Covid restrictions.

Lau Tat-fai, an acting senior traffic superintendent, said while people may be "hungry" for celebrations on the streets, they should still maintain appropriate social distancing and wear masks because of the high daily Covid tallies in recent days.

Asked about a stampede in South Korea at Halloween, Lau said this served as a good reminder of the need to make preparations for different scenarios.

He said Hong Kong police have made a series of plans for crowd control and road diversions, and people should listen to the directions of officers on the ground.