Hong Kong  - Organizers of an annual candlelight vigil held to mark the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre claim around 20,000 people attended the event Wednesday night - less than half the number of last year.

The event, which is held annually on June 4, is the only public memorial of the 1989 killings allowed on Chinese soil.

Crowds began pouring into the city's Victoria Park early evening to hear speeches and to watch videos made by relatives of those who died when Chinese troops and tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square to brutally crush a student uprising.

There was also one minute's silence to remember those who died in the recent earthquake in Sichuan.

In the past the event has attracted up to 70,000 people. Organizers claimed the lower turnout on this the 19th anniversary was because attention had been diverted to the earthquake and to the upcoming Olympics Games in China.

People in Hong Kong were horrified by the events of June 4, 1989, when Chinese troops killed hundreds and possibly thousands of protestors.

The massacre had particular poignancy for people in the city of 6.9 million, then still a British colony but only eight years away from reverting to Chinese rule in 1997.

Although it is now part of China, the annual Tiananmen memorial and other anti-government protests are allowed because of Hong Kong's status as a special administrative region where citizens have freedom of speech. (dpa)