Hong Kong - Hong Kong stocks slumped nearly 2.3 per cent Thursday as pessimism gripped the market amid concerns over the earnings outlook of some big companies.

The Hang Seng Index lost 492.43 points to end the day at 20,972.29 points, down 2.29 per cent on Wednesday's close. Turnover was a relatively light 66.7 billion Hong Kong dollars.

The fall in prices comes after a strong week and was led by heavyweight stocks Esprit Holdings, PetroChina and China Mobile which disappointed investors with their earnings.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's struggling Disneyland theme park made a loss of almost 200 million US dollars in its second year of operation, a news report said Thursday.

The park, which opened in 2005, was only one third full for most of 2006-2007 and suffered losses totalling 193.9 million US dollars, the South China Morning Post said.

Quoting confidential company documents, the newspaper said the park had only 4.17 million visitors in its second year, 11,400 a day or roughly a third its 34,000 capacity.

Hong Kong - An investigation was under way Thursday into how a 100-year-old tree that survived a typhoon in Hong Kong collapsed and killed a 19-year-old woman five days later.

University student Chong Chung-yin was walking with two cousins in the city's Stanley district on Wednesday when the 23-metre-high tree split in two and collapsed.

Chong died of head injuries caused by the falling tree. Her two female cousins, aged 11 and 12, escaped with only cuts and bruises.

Hong Kong - A woman gave birth to a boy on board a flight from Hong Kong to Australia, a news report said Thursday.

Parmajit Kaur, 29, was returning from a visit to her family in India. She went into labour on the last leg of a journey back to Adelaide, where she lives.

Kaur, who was 34-weeks pregnant, gave birth to a healthy 2.7- kilogramme boy with the help of four doctors who were on board the flight Wednesday morning, the South China Morning Post reported.

Hong Kong - The popularity of Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang has plunged to an all-time low after a series of government blunders this summer, according to an opinion poll Wednesday.

Thirty-four per cent of people interviewed in the six-monthly poll said they were dissatisfied with the performance of Beijing-appointed Tsang compared to just 13 per cent in February.

The number of people who said they were happy with Tsang's performance, meanwhile, was just 29 per cent compared to 47 per cent six months ago, University of Hong Kong researchers found.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's population is ageing rapidly because of low birth rates and the reluctance of young mainland Chinese to migrate to the city, a news report said Tuesday.

As China becomes more prosperous, the proportion of young people coming to Hong Kong, population 6.9 million, has fallen from 30 per cent in 2002 to less than 25 per cent in 2008, the South China Morning Post reported.

While mainland Chinese used to scramble to relocate to wealthy Hong Kong, a daily quota of 150 migrants has been met only once in the past five years, the newspaper said.