The Happy Valley Race Disaster of 1926 | Episode 39

If you hate the idea of horses being injured as much as I do, let me tell you right off the bat that not a single horse will be injured in this episode. I mean, they're pretty much the only thing that won't be here. Hello, and welcome to Doomsday Histories Most Dangerous Podcast. Together we're going to rediscover some of the most traumatic, bizarre, and onspiring but largely unheard of or forgotten disasters from throughout human history and around the world. On today's episode, we'll discuss Britain's atrocious people skills. You'll hear Aukham's razor used as a verb. You'll hear about people being tetrist into debris, and what happens when your arms become a Halloween prop. This is not the show you play around kids, or while eating, or even a mixed company. But as long as you find yourself a little more historically aged and learn something that could potentially save your life, our work is done. So with all that said, shoot the kids out of the room, put on your headphones and safety glasses, and let's begin. Today's story begins, oddly enough, with a little background on the war on drugs, but not the one that you're thinking of, but make sure you pack every vaccine you've ever heard of, some kind of crucifix, and maybe a sidearm, because today's journey begins way back in the early modern era. This is like right after the medieval times. The medieval period alone could be its own eight part series. If you google why the Medieval period was so bad, the first search result simply says tuberculosis, sweating sickness, smallpox, dysentery, typhoid influenza, mumps, and gastro intestinal infections. Then you've got your black death, whatever passed for medicine, executions for pretty much everything, and methods so inhumane and disturbing they make the Taliban look like a touch football league, which is saying a lot. Your chances of seeing a first birthday were fifty to fifty, and the murder rate evokes feelings of the most cartel ravaged parts of Mexico only everywhere. But take a breath. We're just coming out of all that. We now find ourselves in an age of enlightenment. The Renaissance was upon us a time for more reflective pursuits, and with it the rise of the modern nation state and capitalism and European heads of state set their eyes on trading with and stealing from as much of the contemporary world map as they could. Britain created a trading relationship with exotic and far off locations across the globe, including China. By fifteen fifty seven, they were bringing in silk teas and porcelain back to the motherland. You couldn't throw a rat in Britain without hitting up silk tea or porcelain shop. The thing was same as now, Britain did not produce anything the Chinese were all that interested in. If you're thinking the best way to address an imbalance in trade would be to maybe get a better sense of their needs and wants and find a way to facilitate that. Let me stop you right there. You are Britain. You just spent the last three hundred years burning and stretching and bisecting people for everything from dematic possession to poverty and unpopular opinions or small larceny whatever. And as Britain, you have comprehensively demonstrated for hundreds of years that people skills are just not your strong suit. So you recognize an imbalance in trade and you put your best and brightest on it. So what's your move? Well, you decide to smuggle opium to China from India in hopes of destabilizing their entire country. Well, on paper, you're hoping opium sales will change the balance of trade in your favor. But the only thing standing between you and sleeping on a mattress filled with money is the act of addiction of millions of innocent people. And thing is It worked and millions of lives were destroyed. But asides from that, you sleep great because you suck. And I mean think of it this way. You did this to a country that had already banned the use of tobacco for being too decadent. The Shan government responded by declaring the very first war on drugs. They started this by seizing about two million pounds of opium on import from British pushers. That's five hundred Dodge caravans worth by weight, not street value. And those pushers, it weren't just some random bagmen on holiday. These were agents of the Empire. They had diplomatic pull and they used it to demand the British crown flex her royal nuts and strong arm the Emperor of China into paying for all the smack they nicked. It sounds a lot like when you hear somebody call nine to one one to report their drugs were stolen. But that's just you've really got to suspend your disbelief in order for a lot of history to make sense. Not only did Britain do it, but when China told them to eat a butt over it, Britain skipped past the diplomat of DonJoy visit and went straight to cannon bawling coastal towns until they were all smoking and level and flat. They followed up with ground troops to make sure and bayonet any civilians who hadn't already died during their one sided game of cash, and China was all, what the hell was that? So Britain began shelling up for their inland to reiterate. Add to that, now they wanted China to pay for all the cannonballs and gunpowder that they were using on them and throw in an island for their troubles. Well, history remembers this as the first Opium War, and China didn't do that. Well, I'll just slip in here and that during all this time, opium was illegal in Britain. But Britain wasn't just all about bringing munitions and explosions and narcotics to foreign lands. With the war ended, the English cashed in on their demands. And if you ever wondered why Hong Kong flew a British flag until nineteen ninety seven, now you know the story. The island of Hong Kong became a British protectorate for one hundred and fifty years. It's officially known as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China to be specific and call it whatever you like, but it was Britain's now and they really like to leave a mark on places, you know, starting with smoking craters, but then they bring in their sporting institutions, cricket, golf, rugby, tennis, even horse racing, and that's why we're here. Horse racing has been a thing in Asia for about sixty five hundred years. The Greeks and the Romans picked it up in the last three thousand years and brought it to Britain in the last two thousand years, and then England brought it back to China. The barrel of a gun betting on it makes horse racing one of the most popular sports in world history. It's no secret that the China have stronger levels of gambling addiction than Western countries. Westerners like to gamble for greed, but the Chinese do it for greed but also to be sociable. It's totally cultural and historical for them. They've been doing it for over four thousand years. So, without further ado, welcome to the Happy Valley Racecourse. What once stood as a patch of marshy land overlooking Hong Kong Harbor today stands as a world class sporting venue. It was a malaria ridden swamp back then, and it transformed into one of the greatest racetracks in the world. It was mostly built to accommodate the British horse players who live nearby, and it grew in popularity because it was one of the few high brow events that let all the social classes mix freely together. Sheer faced grandstands rose magnificently among beautiful treelined hills. Happy Valley was shaped like a Roman amphitheater if you can picture it, with tight turns and high stands close to the track with steep tiers to make everybody had a great view. It became one of those cheek, fashionable places where British expats could get a little dressed up and hobnob with the Hoi Polloi. It was also a place where regular Chinese citizens could scratch that gambling itch. Because of this, As the years went by, more and more people visited in Happy Valley, and more and more stands needed to be built to seat all those itchy butts. In the interest of time and necessity, these stands were constructed at a bamboo scaffolding and pilings resting on wooden planks, with thatched facades and rooms made from dried palms. But these weren't like the stands you kind of expected, like a high school sporting event. The best way to describe them it's like a kind of ornate tiki hut, as big as a suburban American home, but designed after ancient Chinese theatrical and religious structures. They could fit hundreds comfortably, with a main level with a wood encounter for wagering and food and drink stands, and big open windows for watching the races. Was a basement level, but by far the top floor was the most popular for spectators. Imagine a line of about twenty of these buildings, all connected to each other. In the middle of the complex. There was only one door in the entire structure, located at the rear, that led out to the street. The roofs were large, slanted affairs built with tons of palm leaves that hung past the viewing areas to provide shade. Some stood as high as three stories and offered views unparalleled outside of the more permanent seating areas. They came to be known as the Mat sheds because of the mats of palm leaves. They ran along the Wongnai Cheong Road that connected the Happy Valley Racecourse to the Royal Hong Kong Golf Club. Beneath the elevated viewing areas on the main floors were a kind of minim all of sizzling walks and bookies, a large open area of vendors. Today was us special day. It was the second day's racing of the Hong Kong Jockey Club annual Derby Day Races. The China Stakes never been to a horse race before. This is a big deal. The Derby races were held every February after the annual rains. It signaled the beginning of race season and spring races are races, but sometimes their purses or stakes or occasionally a crown. These are basic distinctions that usually denote the kinds of prize money up for grabs, and the purses at Happy Valley attracted owners from all across Asia. This race was the equivalent of the Royal Ascot in England or the Breeders Cup in America. Their terms, they used to try to paint these kind of events filled with crowds of seething verbally abduce of ticket rippers with a veneer a patroant tree between races most visited the match sheds, stalls and stands for everything a hungry stomach or a degenerate gambler could possibly desire. Maybe you think people were excited about the prospects of losing their money betting on horses they never met before. You should see them at tiffin time. The fuck is tiffin time? You ask? Across Asia and the Caribbean, Tiffins were these light meal boxes that you'd get and you'd just eat during the day. One of the more congenial, less violent things that the British brought with them was the notion of tea time, and just like peanut butter and chocolate before long, all over Hong Kong, tea time and Tiffin o'clock became synonymous and morphed into tiff and time. Happened about two point thirty in the afternoon. The matched vendors working beneath the stands worked away, slapping skillets and prepping boxes as quick as they could. Huge crowds of Chinese, English and Portuguese of all ages milled about, smacking their lips and hurrying before the next race bell. About ten thousand people were in attendance that day, and as many as six thousand were in the match sheds. The horses had already taken to the field. The first bell for the China Steaks rang about ten to three, which was more of a last minute warning to those looking to get their snack on and their bets in before post time post times when they show the betting windows in your face, no more wagers. With that urgency, even more people pushed into the stands. The mat sheds were owned and run by entrepreneurs from different communities like Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, Indian Swedes. Even back in nineteen twenty six. Hong Kong was extremely multicultural. The excitement built, and with only a few minutes to three o'clock, a scream was heard from outside. It was a man named Pereira. He'd been selling cash, swepes, tickets and booth number eight the Colonial Shed, and he cried out when he noticed that booth number nine the Daha shed, and it started moving. The curious rushed to investigate, but they were not rewarded for their curiosity. They got outside and nothing was wrong. As they began to return to the shed area, though the third bell for the first race went off. The crowd above lurched forward to get their view, when suddenly a crumbling sound was heard. The entire structure of Booth nine lurched forward and folded. It crashed down on all those inside, including mister Perrero. People could not believe what they were seeing. Perrero was able to cut a hole in the roof and a stream of men, women and children crawled free. He assisted as many as he could, except for two women who he knew and sadly wouldn't need their racing forms. That afternoon, there was no real panic, but there were injuries, and there were deaths, and at this point people realized that the match sheds were connected by some kind of line that ran the length along the top. It could have been a measuring tape for all they knew, but it really didn't matter. Very slowly, the rest of the adjoining stands began to sag. I don't mean this to sound like one of the huts on Gilligan's Island fell over. These match heads were built strong enough to support the weight of hundreds and bamboo is no joke you ever hear of a kind of grass that could support fifty two thousand pounds of pressure per square inch. Bamboo is two or three times harder than oak. The underrated and disturbing but cool fact is it's also ridiculously fast growing. It can do one and a half inches in an hour. That's almost three feet in a day. In fact, they used to torture people by tying them to the ground above it and just letting it slowly grow and push through people's guts. When the collapse happened, the structural bamboo clenched inwards, contracting the space. People found themselves pinned by furnishings or tetris between twisted bamboo rods like marbles in a life or death game of KerPlunk. It sounds awful. In less time than it took for me to tell you about it, the rest of the stands weakened and collapsed. The stands fell gradually. It began closest to the golf course and dominoed southward and outwards towards the road. Witnesses said they folded like a pack of cards with a tremendous crash, and thousands of people inside were thrown to the ground and ensnared between tons of debris and fellow race enthusiasts. The whole thing took ten seconds and then it was all over, except for the moaning and the confusion. For the next five minutes, a steady stream of men, women and children clambered to freedom through every improvised exit they could manage. As people appeared, many had blood streaming down their faces, others could barely walk, but many were just straight up trapped. You hear what you've heard so far, and you kind of picture Homer backing through a shrub. But the bamboo had been secured tightly, and the mats of palms were densely layered, so thick and strong they became waterproof. They were much denser than carpet and harder to cut through. It was bad, like really bad, but with police and regimental soldiers parked so close by, it looked pretty clear that everyone could be safely removed, just as long as panic could be avoided. When no one had realized was that during the crash, the palms had fallen on oil lamps below, and one of the cooking stoves had been flipped. Flaming coals were thrown into the chaos of debris, and of course the problem with materials like bamboo and dried vegetation, they both ignite and burn easily. They were a perfect medium to spread fire. To all accounts, it took less time than it took for me to tell you about all this than it did for the flames to begin licking through the seating above, playing a little kitchikoo and setting people's clothes on fire. As smoke began to see from the middle of the stands, police whistles blue and the fire brigade was called. Police immediately got to work pulling hundreds of victims from the debris, but almost immediately a wall of flame appeared, and as it rose so did the panic levels both from within the debris and across the grounds as ticket holders blooded the field and track. The fire started in one of the mat sheds, situated in the center of the line, and it spread outwards. It ignited everything it touched. Screaming began as smoke appeared billowing from the mat sheds, with at least a few thousand spectators trapped inside with it. The pandemonium turned into screaming agony. Most of the victims barely knew they were in danger before they found themselves engulfed in flame. Suffocating smoke built and rolled along the ground, just to make things worse. As rescuers cut holes in the mats, people continued to scramble out, with their clothes blazing and their hair singed down to the scalp. Every available able bodied policemen or soldier, along with no shortage of well meaning citizens, heroically raced towards the heat to help in any way they could. Crowds of spectators grew six feet deep, and a regiment of British soldiers were ordered to keep them back. The injured removed and laid out on the nearby Royal Golf Course for triage and no less than four unrelated medical brigades were already on the scene to treat people. Then the wind picked up. It fed the blaze, creating so much radiant heat that it drove rescuers back quickly. It became impossible to step much closer than one hundred feet of it. What we've described is chaotic and heroic and heartbreaking. But if you've been there, would you know what to do. So you're minding your own in a random building and you just wonder, what if this thing collapsed? How would you even know that kind of thing could happen. Well, there are signs. If you ever found yourself in a space and noticed a window break or a door open and closed by itself, these could be the signs of sudden structural fatigue. If walls ever started separating, pause the podcast and get the hell out of there. The rule of thumb is if a crack forms anywhere and you're building wider than your thumb, it's time to run. Stairwells are reinforced, so use that adrenaline to get in those steps and get the hell out of there. You'll think elevators are okay, and they seem strong, but remember the trash compactor scene from Star Wars. The thing is, of course, when most buildings collapse, they escalate quickly, and if time's not on your side, you are really looking for the best possible place to ride the whole thing out. In fact, you know how they say know your exits when entering a new place. Peep this. If you really want to pump up your surame id. The strongest piece of furniture in any room you enter, remember the triangle of life. Well, if not, think of this. If you throw yourself under a strong desk and the roof comes down, you're pretty much going to have a close casket funeral. It'll collapse some of the incredible weight of the floors above. What you want to do is tuck in as tight as you can aside the thing. By way, even if it collapses, the furniture is going to brace the weight and create a small triangle of life beside it. Next, we move right into the avalanche rules. The idea is keep your hands up by your face and chest, so you create an air pocket and preserve your right to inflate and deflate your lungs as you wish. Speaking of your lungs, what about that fire that broke out in accounting. Well, if you find yourself in a smoky situation and didn't bring your respirator or emergency breathing gear, get down if you can crawl, and if you're detecting the sound or smell of fire and smoke, A highly recommended move is to diy yourself a face mask or a filter and protect yourself. Water has the ability to dissolve contaminants into itself, but once that water becomes saturated with smoke, it's not really protecting you anymore. You kind of need to clean it, and you don't have time for that. The key is to flee, but if that's not an option, if you're trapped in part of a building and you can't get out, you want to seal yourself in. And I know what that sounds like. It sounds awful, but remember you've been told since you were just a little kid never to open the door if it's hot or if it has smoke seeping around it. Use anything you can, I don't care. Pull off your own underwear over your head and shove it in any cracks to prevent smoke from robbing you of oxygen. I mean, no part of this is really an enviable scenario. But force yourself to remain calm and you're gonna be Okay, wait, what's that the lawyers say? I can't really say that. Now, back to our regularly scheduled mayhem. There were so many cases of would be rescuers forced to walk much as people burnt alive in front of their eyes. Others worked feverishly, if unrewardingly, until their hands and arms caught fire. And if you're not detail oriented, plug your ears for maybe the next thirty seconds. It's bad enough for all involved that the smoke would starve your body of oxygen and force you through a kind of a lung and ab workout you never wanted. The heat is enough to contract your soft tissues. It means that all your fats and muscles start to shrink, and your skin's gonna tear. That was just the heat. The actual fire will destroy your nerve endings and blood vessels and sweat glands. Don't even get me started on your hair. Those that burned long enough lost everything down to the bone. Thankfully, most of those people were long past the point of carrying. But knowing that, it's even more incredible that some showed super human levels of endurance and continued. Three members of the Middlesex Regiment were amongst those burnt badly enough that they needed immediate medical evacuation. Like children, all fire really needs to grow is food and encouragement, And when the winds picked up again, it didn't just fan the flames. It gave them a little guidance and direction, along with a power up and a speed boost. This, of course, created even more unwelcome urgency for rescuers. As the fire continued to spread, The Royal Golf Club pavilion seemed to be next on its to do list. Real wrong place, at the wrong time kind of situation for club members, but not before sticky fingered members understood the assignment, and a parade of property and historical knickknacks were kept off the menu. Their building was said to be the strongest thing built in all of Happy Valley, but when the flames got there, the only things left were the walls. The struggler to escape the match sheds was so furious that small children were torn from their parents. Grasp death by trampling was only one of the many awful options left to people trapped inside. Those entombed in the lower sheds cried out for help, but few could really manage to crawl. They were stuck in a dangerous situation. The Xavier family was trapped in the wreckage. Paulo Xavier had to watch as his sister died and was slowly consumed by the creeping flames. He was badly injured himself and he couldn't help her, and as the flames approached, he willed himself to the same fate until a pair of badly burned arms descended from above and pulled him free, saving his life. One man had been helplessly pinned between two beams and used his remaining strength to lift two Japanese ladies and throw them free from the fire. Heroism was on full display that day. There were many stories of people who managed to escape, only to climb back in to save others and were never seen again. An Indian man escaped with his family burned but alive, and begged his sons and their friends not to risk their lives, but they all returned into the smoke and flames to answer the calls of strangers. A witness described a momentary glimpse was seen of them grasping on fortunate women by the arms and pulling with all their strength. Then they were blotted out from view by a portion of the burning material, which crashed down upon them. The most careful search has been made, and no trace of their bodies could be found. Men and women wrung their hands in distress and cried out for their children who were lost. Nearly everyone seemed to have lost a child, a relative, or a friend in the commotion. It made the scene even more anguishing. Children who lost their parents stood dazed and confused. The police had the unenviable job of tracing all these children back to their parents, some of whom had already died in the flames. In some cases, babies were rescued and carried away from the scene. One child was crying so loudly that a European lady picked her up and just took her home, free baby. The fire burned for about three hours and was finally brought under control around six that night. But here is a witness description of the eye gougingly horrific corps memory that awaited rescuers. When the fire prayer was practically quelled, a ghastly site presented itself. Hundreds of charred trucks, skulls and bones were visible, all huddled together. In one instance, I saw the charred remains of two babies clasped by a hand. It was a pathetic sight and several people who were looking at the poor remains were reduced to tears. Officers also had the unenviable job of collecting jewelry and other non perishables that had survived the fire that could help when it came to identifications. Bones in the charred human leftovers were left for local sanitarium inmates to collect. They were told to do it, they weren't just out there doing it. All told, five hundred and seventy bodies have been collected and laid out across the track. Several hundred more lay injured, and in total, it is believed that six hundred and seventy people from various nationalities and backgrounds all died there that day, but will never really know that for sure because of how many missing people reports were made unsolved after the fact. The majority of the dead were Chinese women and children. So what happened? Well, first, let's get the rumors out of the way. One of the first was that the collapse of the first shed happened because someone fell out of it, and everyone rushed to the one side to see. If it were true, it would almost be understandable, but that wasn't nearly as exciting as the rumors that the shed had been sabotaged. Hear me out. The thought was that the supports were cut the night before by thieves hoping to topple the stands and then steal the gambling money in the resulting confusion. It had a real Ocean's eleven heist caper feel to it, So then newspapers ran wild, and you might be Aukham's razoring about it, assuming that the simplest explanation usually prevails, But in this case, the locals were on board with the whole thing, because local thieves had a reputation for pulling off elaborate schemes. An official inquiry into the disaster began in just days and lasted just three weeks. It pointed fingers at the Director of Public Works for not creating and enforcing any kind of safety standards for the construction of temporary stands. It also blamed the Captain Superintendent of Police, because well, public safety is kind of supposed to be their jam. The Governor of Hong Kong at the time was Sir Francis Henry May, and he was the only one pointing fingers at himself. He'd been the head of the police for nine years, he was a huge horse race enthusiast, and afterwards he said that in all that time he never even considered a fire in the match sheds. He blamed himself and claimed the responsibility was ultimately his. The inquiry reminded organizers that literally anything would be a less flammable option for material sources for future stands, but Sir May doubled down and banned temporary race stands altogether. But the fingers continued. There was also the notable absence of fire safety precautions at the scene, and it's not like they didn't exist. Fire extinguishers had been invented by the British back in seventeen twenty three. They'd ended up using everything up to and including fireboats to host the fire down, but even they were pretty ineffective. The police caught a lot of flak for stopping people from returning to the stands to try to rescue others, considering how many people died doing exactly just that, it's really hard for me to disagree or agree. And all of these were valid points, and they were all important for future consideration, but none of it placed a pin on an actual cause, and there might have actually been something. See Normally, in any other year, when they build something like this post, holes would be dugout and the legs of this thing would be buried in the ground to make sure it's unshakable by anything less than an earthquake. They did it like that for years, but for reasons this year, organizers asked them specifically not to dig with the pole sitting above ground. Theoretically, if this had been a wind based disaster, the sheds could have rolled away as the mob lurched towards the racetrack, the structure collapsed from the concentrated weight, and the connecting buildings followed suit. If you're a longtime listener in this Rings a Bell, may I remind you of the Drunken bullfight slash engineering disaster from our Corelayis episode. The full truth is we'll never know exactly what happened, because, as we've said in past episodes about explosions, fire can also be a kind of magic eraser for evidence. All we know for certain is that without the addition of fire, hundreds more would have been saved. The government decided to bury most of the victims on a terraced hillside overlooking Hong Kong Stadium, and a small memorial marks the site. After the disaster, many lost their appetite for horse racing, but not for long. By the following year's Chinese New Year, new permanent brick and concrete seven story grandstands had been erected. Lingering on the disaster was bad for business, and Hong Kong was all about moving forward once again. The Happy Valley Racecourse had become so popular it's seen as more of a place to drink and socialize than to gamble for most, but gambling for sure, I mean yes. It was a real afterword hotspot, capable of accommodating fifty five thousand and it handles as much as one hundred million dollars a day in wagers. Today, Happy Valley has transformed into a green oasis, completely overshadowed by a futuristic skyline taller than Manhattan's. Hong Kong has changed a lot since nineteen twenty six, but the draw of the Happy Valley Racecourse remains eternal. The nineteen twenty six. Derby fire is not only the worst thing to ever happen in Happy Valley, it's the worst thing to ever happen in the long history of Hong Kong. As many as one in five died there that day, which is un imaginable given how busy it was. I spent a lot of time at horse tracks as a kid with my dad, and I can't even begin to understand what this would have felt like for either of us to have been in this situation like that. What balances the horror here was the fact that accountability was claimed and lessons were both learned and applied. But over the years, Happy Valley did face other scandals. It was a race fixing fiasco, an elaborate poison horse dart scheme, and something called Rakegate. Taking all that into account, even today, some locals claim that this course was cursed from the beginning because of its closeness to the Hong Kong Cemetery. You can reach out to us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook as Doomsday Podcast, or fire us an email at doomsdaypod at gmail dot com. We're also Doomsday dot the dot podcast on TikTok Old. Episodes can be found wherever you found this one, and while you're there, please leave us a review and tell your friends. If you want to support the ongoing production of the show, you can find us at Patreon dot com slash Funeral Kazoo or buy Me a Coffee dot com slash Doomsday. But, like we always say, if you can spare the money and had to choose, we ask you to consider making a donation to Global Medic. Global Medic is a rapid response agency of Canadian volunteers offering assistance around the globe to aid in the aftermath of disasters and crises. They're often the first and sometimes the only team to get critical interventions to people in life threatening situations, and to date they have helped over three point six million people across seventy seven different countries. You can learn more and donate at Globalmedic dot ca. On the next episode, when's the last time you remember hearing of people being killed by one of the seven natural Wonders of the world? Well, who cares, doesn't matter. It is the Niagara ice Bridge disaster of nineteen twelve. We'll talk soon. Save togoggles off and thanks, thanks for listening.