Two suicides and one attempted suicide were recorded in Hong Kong on the day a survey showed one-tenth of young people had considered taking their lives, police and media reports said yesterday.
All three had leapt from buildings in bids to end their lives on Monday, police said.
University teaching assistant Chan Kam-kei, 29, was suffering from depression after losing his job, the Apple Daily newspaper said, and jumped from a 10th-floor balcony.
He later died from his injuries in the hospital.
A heartbroken girl, 19, leapt to her death from a 19th-floor window after a row with her boyfriend she suspected was having an affair with a friend.
Another girl, a 20-year-old named Lee, was being treated in hospital for serious head injuries after jumping from the first floor of a shopping center.
A suicide note found in her purse described feeling depressed after being spurned by a boy she had fled mainland China to be with.
The incidents added weight to a survey released by the Chinese University that showed suicidal tendencies among teenagers were at a high.
A poll of 3,498 secondary school students showed 29.2 percent had suffered from depression and feelings of hopelessness while 11.1 percent had seriously considered taking their lives.
Some 9 percent had thought about how to commit suicide in the past year while 4 percent of the poll's respondents had actually attempted to kill themselves, usually by slashing their wrists or taking drugs.
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Sociologists say children in Hong Kong are put under too much pressure to succeed at school and often do not communicate enough with their workaholic parents.
Worries about high unemployment and the SARS epidemic made Hong Kong one of the suicide hotspots of the world last year, with 16.4 deaths per 100,000 people, above the world average of 14.5, the Samaritans help agency said.
The most common forms of suicide in Hong Kong are jumping from high buildings, burning charcoal in a sealed room and hanging.
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