By DPA,
Hong Kong : Hong Kong Monday joined China in declaring three days of official mourning for the victims of the earthquake which shook Sichuan province killing thousands last week.
Government offices and workplaces throughout the city fell silent at 2.28 p.m. – the exact time that the earthquake struck Monday, May 12 – to observe a three-minute silence to commemorate the dead.
The stock exchange also suspended trading for three minutes and border traffic came to a temporary standstill as buses, MRT trains and ferries sounded their horns to signal the start of the silence.
Hong Kong people have given more than $115 million to help the victims of the disaster.
The outpouring of donations in less than one week is triple the amount given by people in the former British colony to the victims of the snowstorms in China earlier this year.
It is also a third more than Hong Kongers donated to victims of the disastrous 1991 floods in China, the Hong Kong Standard newspaper reported.
Hong Kong’s donations towards the earthquake victims amount to around one ninth of all global donations towards the relief effort in Sichuan province.
Money is continuing to pour in with fundraising activities being organised in schools and office across the city of 6.9 million, which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.
More than 50,000 people are feared to have died, hundreds of thousands were injured and five million have been left homeless by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake last Monday.