Sharp fall in Bank of East Asia following a worse-than-expected first-half result and a decline in heavy weight HSBC after it reported a slide in its first-half earnings dragged Hong Kong shares lower Tuesday.

The blue-chip Hang Seng Index fell 565.17 points, or 2.51 percent, to 21,949.75 after trading between 21,739.22 and 22,225. 06 during the session.

Turnover went up to 63.99 billion HK dollars (8.21 billion U.S. dollars) from Monday's 49.07 billion HK dollars (6.29 billion U.S. dollars).

HSBC fell 2.2 percent to 126.60 HK dollars after it reported a first-half net profit of 7.70 billion U.S. dollars, down from 10.9 billion U.S. dollars a year earlier, on a poorer-than-expected performance by its U.S. business and writedowns on credit investments.

Bank of East Asia plunged 8.3 percent to 33.20 HK dollars, after it reported a 52 percent slump in first-half net profit to 894 million HK dollars, well below analysts' forecasts of 1.91 billion HK dollars.

Also pulling the market lower was China Mobile, which ended down 2.1 percent at 102.30 HK dollars after Daiwa Securities downgraded it to hold from buy late Monday on concerns of slower revenue growth.

China's resources companies fell on concerns of an economic slowdown in China. Chinese coal producer China Shenhua was down 8.9 percent at 25.45 HK dollars and aluminum producer Chalco declined 7.8 percent to 6.83 HK dollars. (7.8 HK dollars = 1 U.S. dollar) E