By Tyrone Siu, Joyce Zhou and Jessie Pang
Follow our live coverage of the Hong Kong apartment fire here.
A huge fire still burning across multiple high-rise buildings in a Hong Kong housing complex that has killed at least 55 people and left nearly 300 missing may have been caused by a “grossly negligent” construction firm using unsafe materials, police have said.
Almost a full day after the fire began, firefighters were struggling to reach residents potentially trapped on the upper floors of the Wang Fuk Court housing complex due to intense heat and thick smoke from the fire that erupted on Wednesday evening AEDT.
Firefighters work to extinguish the fire at Wang Fuk Court, where hundreds of people are unaccounted for.Credit: AP
Police said, in addition to the buildings being covered with protective mesh sheets and plastic that may not meet fire standards, they discovered that some windows on one unaffected building were sealed with a foam material installed by a construction company carrying out year-long maintenance work.
“We have reason to believe that the company’s responsible parties were grossly negligent, which led to this accident and caused the fire to spread uncontrollably, resulting in major casualties,” said Eileen Chung, a Hong Kong police superintendent.
Two directors and one engineering consultant from the construction firm had been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter over the fire, she added.
Police officers searched the housing estate’s building maintenance company, seizing documents that mentioned Wang Fuk Court, local media reported. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Secretary for Security Chris Tang said a criminal investigation would be pursued.
One firefighter was among the dead, officials said. At least 71 people were injured, many suffering from burns and inhalation injuries. Firefighters said the operation could last until at least Thursday evening.
About 900 people were evacuated to temporary shelters overnight, and Hong Kong leader John Lee said about midnight that contact had been lost with 279 people. Rescues were continuing, but an updated figure wasn’t available by midday on Thursday.
By Thursday afternoon AEDT, authorities said they had brought the fire in four of seven blocks under control, with operations continuing in three blocks. Video from the scene some 22 hours after the blaze began showed flames still leaping from at least two of the 32-storey towers sheathed in green construction mesh and bamboo scaffolding.
“The priority is to extinguish the fire and rescue the residents who are trapped,” Lee told reporters. “The second is to support the injured. The third is to support and recover. Then, we’ll launch a thorough investigation.”
The bamboo scaffolding is a mainstay of traditional Chinese architecture, but it has been subject to a phase-out in Hong Kong since March for safety reasons, following the deaths of 22 people involving bamboo scaffolders between 2019 and 2024.
Lee said separately that officials would conduct immediate inspections of all housing estates across the city undergoing major renovation work to ensure that scaffolding and construction materials met safety standards.
Wang Fuk Court is one of many high-rise housing complexes in Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated areas in the world. The tightly packed complex in the northern Tai Po district has 2000 apartments in eight blocks that are home to more than 4600 people in a city struggling with chronic shortages of affordable housing.
Hong Kong estates are densely populated, with multi-generational families often living in a single small apartment.
Searching for relatives
The death toll is now the highest in a Hong Kong fire since 1948, when 176 people were killed in a warehouse blaze.
The latest fire has prompted comparisons to the Grenfell Tower inferno that killed 72 people in London in 2017, which was blamed on firms fitting flammable cladding to the exterior, as well as failings by the government and the construction industry.
“Our hearts go out to all those affected by the horrific fire in Hong Kong,” the Grenfell United survivors’ group said on social media. “To the families, friends and communities, we stand with you. You are not alone.”
Images from Hong Kong overnight.Credit: Agencies
Harry Cheung, 66, who has lived at Block Two in one of the complexes for more than 40 years, said he heard a loud noise about 2.45pm (5.45pm AEDT) and saw fire erupt in a nearby block.
“I immediately went back to pack up my things,” he said. “I don’t even know how I feel right now. I’m just thinking about where I’m going to sleep tonight.”
A woman who gave her surname as Ng, 52, was distraught as she looked for her daughter outside a shelter.
“She and her father are still not out yet. They didn’t have water to save our building,” she sobbed, carrying her daughter’s graduation photo.
Another long-time resident, a woman named Chu, said she still had not been able to contact her friends who live in the next block. After staying over at a friend’s place on Wednesday night, the 70-year-old came back to see her home still burning.
“We don’t know what to do,” she said.
An online app showed missing persons reports submitted through a linked Google document that detailed residents of individual towers and rooms.
It includes descriptions such as “Mother-in-law in her 70s, missing” or “one boy and one girl” or “Rooftop: 33-year-old male”.
One description simply says: “27th floor, room 1: He is dead.” Reuters could not independently verify the information on the app.
Xi urges ‘all-out effort’
Many residents took to social media to criticise what they saw as negligence and cost-cutting as a cause of the fire. One video showed several construction workers smoking on the bamboo scaffolding surrounding one of the complex’s blocks during the renovation process.
The blaze was likely due to a combination of factors, including the use of flammable bamboo scaffolding, the close proximity of buildings that allowed the fire to spread rapidly, and possibly insufficient fire-resistant material, said Vincent Ho, founder of the Hong Kong Institute of Building Safety, a think tank.
“The accident shows the potential risks of bamboo scaffolding, and we have to make a change,” Ho told Bloomberg, adding that metal frames would not eliminate risk, since other renovation materials – such as netting, wooden platforms and protective boards – also need proper fire-proofing.
From the mainland, China’s President Xi Jinping urged an “all-out effort” to extinguish the fire and to minimise casualties and losses, China’s state broadcaster CCTV said.
Occupied since 1983, the complex is under the government’s subsidised home ownership scheme, according to property agency websites. According to online posts, it has been undergoing renovations for a year at a cost of $HK330 million ($64.9 million), with each unit paying between $HK160,000 and $HK180,000.
The city’s sky-high property prices have long been a trigger for social discontent, and the fire tragedy could further stoke resentment towards authorities ahead of a citywide legislative election in early December.
AP, Bloomberg, Reuters with Josefine Ganko
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