June 30,1993: Wong Ka Kui dies
at the age of 31.
Real Audio  190.K
Tokyo -Wong Ka Kui, the
singer with Hong Kong's leading rock band, Beyond, died June 30
after severeal days in a coma. He had sustained severe head injuries
in an accident at a Tokyo TV studio.
Wong, 31, and
the other three members of Beyond had been taking part in a "mock
battle" with other guests during shooting of Fuji TV variety
program "Uchan Nanchan No Yarunara Yaraneba!" at about
I a.m. June 24. During the 'battle" sequence, a panel at
the edge of the elevated set gave way and Wong and show co-host
Teruyoshi Uchimura fell more than 7 feet to the studio floor below.
 Wong and Uchimura,
who sustained a bruise to his chest were taken to a nearby hospital.
The Chinese artist-whose nickname, in a grim twist of fate, was "Koma" - showed a slight improvement June 27 when a practitioner
of Chinese herbal medicine treated Wong after doctors here pronounced
the case hopeless.
In the days
following the accident, thousands of Beyond fans gathered at Hong
Kong temples to pray for Wong and deluged the band's management
office with calls and inquiries, causing the office to temporarily
suspend operations.
Each of Beyond's
10 albums has sold an average of 500,000 copies in the Southeast
Asian region.
"I wich
I were in his place," said Wong Ka Keung, Beyond's bassist
and Ka Kui's brother, before breaking into tears.
Tokyo police
are investigating the circumstances surrounding the accident,
said Koh-ichi Murakami, senior executive producer of the Fuji
Television Network's programming departments
Although the
network had cearried out all necessary safety measures, said Murakami, "we are taking action to prevent other accidents." He
confirmed, however, that there was no safety net in place during
the filming.
Formed in 1983,
Beyond has a reputation for bucking the conventions of the Hong
Kong music in dustry. Their hard-rocking style and overtly political
Iyrics set them apart from the usual Cantonese idol fare.
In the first
such deal involving Hong Kong rock band, Beyond in January 1992
signed a worldwide management contract with Amuse an effort to
expand beyond the Hong Kong and overseas Chinese markets and become
a truly international act.
The band's members
have been living in Japan since January, recording new material,
learning Japanese, and making media appearances.
Despite the
accident, which leaves the group's future very much in doubt,
Beyond's new Japanese-language single, "Kuchibiru-Ubaitai
' was released June 25 as scheduled.
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