Hong Kong fire authorities said they expected to wrap up search and rescue operations on Friday after the city’s worst fire in nearly 80 years tore through a massive apartment complex, killing at least 94 people and leaving dozens still missing.
Firefighters had mostly contained the blaze that destroyed the Wang Fuk Court housing complex in the northern district of Tai Po. The eight-tower estate housing more than 4,600 people had been undergoing renovations and was wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh when the fire started and quickly spread on Wednesday afternoon.
Police said they had arrested three construction company officials on suspicion of manslaughter for using unsafe materials, including flammable foam boards blocking windows.
Firefighters continued to work at the still-smouldering complex on Friday morning.
“We’ll endeavour to effect forcible entry to all the units of the seven buildings, so as to ensure there are no other possible casualties,” Deputy Fire Services Director Derek Chan told reporters early on Friday.
As many as 279 people were listed as missing in the early hours of Thursday morning, but that figure has not been updated for more than 24 hours. Chan said 25 calls for help to the Fire Department remain unresolved, including three in recent hours, which would be prioritised.
Rescue Operations Underway
“Hope they can find more survivors in the building, I think they have tried their best; the firefighters have done a lot,” resident Jacky Kwok said. “It is a terrible disaster that no one wanted to happen.”
Rescuers had battled intense heat, thick smoke and collapsing scaffolding and debris as they fought to reach residents feared trapped on the upper floors of the complex.
On Thursday, a distraught woman carrying her daughter’s graduation photograph searched for her child outside a shelter, one of eight that authorities said were housing 900 residents.
“She and her father are still not out yet,” said the 52-year-old, who gave only her surname, Ng, as she sobbed. “They didn’t have water to save our building.”
Most of the victims were found in two towers in the complex, while firefighters found survivors in several buildings, Chan said, but gave no further details.
Worst Fire Since 1948
The confirmed death toll rose to 94 early on Friday, the Hospital Authority said. Two of the dead were Indonesian nationals working as domestic helpers, the Indonesian consulate said. Hong Kong has around 368,000 domestic workers, mostly women from low-income Asian countries who live with their employers.
The fire is now Hong Kong’s deadliest since 1948, when 176 people died in a warehouse blaze, and has prompted comparisons to London’s Grenfell Tower inferno, which killed 72 people in 2017. That fire was blamed on firms fitting the exterior with flammable cladding, as well as failings by the government and the construction industry.
Police arrested two directors and an engineering consultant of Prestige Construction, a firm that had been doing maintenance on Wang Fuk Court for more than a year.
“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,” Police Superintendent Eileen Chung said on Thursday. Prestige did not answer repeated calls for comment.
Police seized bidding documents, a list of employees, 14 computers and three mobile phones in a raid of the company’s office, the government added.
The city’s development bureau has discussed gradually replacing bamboo scaffolding with metal scaffolding as a safety measure.
(With inputs from Reuters)
