War & the Refugee City · event 4 of 9

25 December 1953

The Shek Kip Mei fire. A squatter settlement burns on Christmas Day, leaving around 53,000 homeless overnight and beginning the public housing programme that now houses close to half the population.

The War & the Refugee City era

  1. 25 December 1941
  2. 1945
  3. 1949
  4. 25 December 1953
  5. 1966
  6. 1967
  7. 1972
  8. 1974
  9. 1979

See the full timeline or read the history of Hong Kong.