Hong Kong - A Hong Kong teenager celebrating his 18th birthday and three of his friends were Monday confirmed as being among the 43 dead in Saturday's nightclub blaze in southern China.

Choi Wai-tat and his friends crossed the border to Shenzhen to celebrate his birthday in the Dance King nightclub which is popular with Hong Kong youths because of its cheap drinks.

He died with his friends aged 17 to 20 as smoke from a fireworks show that went wrong billowed through the unlicensed club and people scrambled to try to escape through a single exit, officials said.

The only member of the Hong Kong party to survive the tragedy was Cheng Sze-lap, who later told reporters he was knocked unconscious in the stampede for the exit.

Hong Kong Suicides on Hong Kong's railway lines have declined by almost 60 per cent since platform screen doors were installed at underground train stations, an expert study said Sunday.

The number of people jumping to their deaths in front of trains annually has dropped from 10.2 to 4.4 in the five years since the barriers which run the length of platforms began to be put up.

Hong Kong - A pilot and his co-pilot have been suspended after they tried to take off from a taxiway rather than a runway at Hong Kong International Airport, investigators said Saturday.

An air traffic controller raised the alarm when he saw a South Korea-bound Hong Kong Airlines Boeing 737 carrying 122 passengers hurtling down a taxiway running parallel to the airport's north runway.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong shares shot up by 6.5 per cent Friday morning as a roller-coaster week moved towards an end with a strong overnight rally on Wall Street.

The blue-chip Hang Seng Index closed the morning up 1,146.57 points at 18,779.03 points. Turnover was a hefty 62.1 billion Hong Kong dollars (7.97 billion US dollars).

The surge in share prices comes after Wall Street staged one of its biggest one-day rises in months after central banks intervened in global markets to halt their decline.

Hong Kong - A wild boar was shot dead in Hong Kong after going on a five-hour rampage during which it injured three people and kept trapping teams at bay, police said Friday.

The 120 kilogram boar, which was about 1.3 metres long, was fighting with two dogs in rural Yuen Long near Hong Kong's border with China when it burst into a village house Thursday afternoon.

It bit a father and son aged 76 and 54 as they tried to drive it out of the house and also injured a neighbour who tried to help, a police spokesman said.

The boar was eventually locked in a store room and police and countryside warders were called to try to lure it into a cage and trap it.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong shares fell by more than 7 per cent in the first hour of trading Thursday in one of the city's worst financial weeks on record.

The Hang Seng Index, was down by 1,301.05 points or 7.38 per cent at 16,336.4 points at lunchtime Thursday. Turnover was a robust 48.5 billion Hong Kong dollars.

The sharp decline followed falls of 5.4 per cent Tuesday and another 3.63 per cent Wednesday. The market was closed for a public holiday Monday.