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HONG KONG (AP) – Hong Kong’s Deadliest fire in decades has raised questions about corruption and negligence in the renovation of the apartment complex where at least 128 people died.
A massive fire broke out at the Wang Fuk Court complex in Hong Kong’s northern suburbs. Wednesday afternoonThe flames covered seven of the eight towers. The complex was home to approximately 4,800 residents, some of whom had raised safety concerns about the renovation more than a year before the fire.
Police on Wednesday arrested three people from a construction company on suspicion of murder and gross negligence. He was released on bail but arrested by the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the authority said Saturday night, pointing to his leadership role in the renovation. ICAC had earlier arrested seven men and one woman associated with the project.
Police have not identified the company where the suspects worked, but documents posted on the homeowners association’s website showed that Prestige Construction and Engineering Co. was in charge of the renovation. Police have seized boxes of documents from the company where the phone rang on Thursday.
Officials also said they were examining the materials used, both the mesh on the scaffolding and the foam panels covering the windows, and their role in the fire.
Residents found safety issues a year before the fire
For nearly a year, some residents of the Wang Fuk Court complex had been raising safety concerns with Hong Kong authorities about the scaffolding material being used in the renovation project, particularly the netting covering the scaffolding, according to documents reviewed by the AP.
Hong Kong’s Labor Department confirmed in a statement on Saturday that it had received such complaints, adding that authorities had conducted 16 inspections of the Wang Fuk Court renovation project from July 2024, and had warned contractors in writing several times to ensure they met fire safety requirements. The city also conducted an inspection a week before the fire.
The Labor Department said it had reviewed the netting’s product quality certificate and found it conformed to standards, but was not the previous goal of a safety netting inspection.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the fire started on the scaffolding netting of a lower level of a building. Chris Tang, the city’s safety secretary, said the fire broke out in foam panels and spread rapidly. Police also said they were looking at highly flammable foam panels.
“The fire ignited the foam panels, causing the glass to shatter and the fire rapidly intensified and spread into the interior spaces,” Tang said.
The Labor Department said later on Saturday that it had brought three cases against the company over safety violations for working at height in construction and was fined a total of 30,000 Hong Kong dollars ($3,850) after being found guilty on two counts. The company was also fined three times in 2023 for separate violations related to the Tai Po project.
Hong Kong Fire Services director Andy Yeung said first responders also discovered that some fire alarms in the complex, where many elderly people lived, were not ringing during the test. He did not specify how many people were not working or whether anyone else was working.
It took several days to extinguish the massive fire
It took firefighters a day to bring the blaze under control, and it was not completely extinguished until Friday morning – nearly 40 hours after it broke out.
Crews prioritized apartments from where they received emergency calls during a fire “But we were unable to reach them in the hours before the fire got out of control,” Derek Armstrong Chan, deputy director of the Hong Kong Fire Service, told reporters.
Of the 79 people injured in the fire, 12 firefighters were killed, and one firefighter died.
Even two days after the fire, smoke continued to billow from the charred skeletons of buildings in occasional flare-ups.
More bodies may be found
Although more bodies may be recovered, officials said, crews have completed the search for any survivors trapped inside.
Authorities said Saturday they needed to identify 44 more of the 128 bodies recovered. About 150 people are missing.
The Indonesian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that the dead included two Indonesian migrant workers. Indonesian Consul General Yul Edison said on Friday that about 11 other expatriates from the country who were working as domestic helpers at the apartment complex were missing.
Near the fire scene, Sarah Yu held the hand of her 2-year-old son, Dominic, as they each placed a white rose among the growing mass of flowers in the small children’s playground.
“I brought the children here because I want them to understand that living in this world is worth cherishing,” she said, choking back tears.
Outside a building near the site of the fire, where family members had come to identify loved ones from photographs, people laid bouquets of white roses, lilies and carnations. “Over 128 innocent lives lost, what did they do wrong?”. asked a sign placed among the flowers.
The city lowered flags to half-staff in mourning, and Chief Executive John Lee held a three-minute silence Saturday at government headquarters and all officials wore black.
The fire was the worst fire in Hong Kong in decades. In 1996, a fire at a commercial building in Kowloon killed 41 people. According to the South China Morning Post, a warehouse fire in 1948 killed 176 people.
Researcher Shihuan Chen in Beijing and writer David Rising in Hong Kong contributed to this report. Wu reported from Bangkok