Hong Kong
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For half an hour as the fire grew and swallowed an adjoining constructing, Wan watched tv in his house, unaware of the hazard blazing his approach. Even when he heard a commotion exterior and sirens wailing in the gap, he brushed it apart as a usually loud afternoon in Hong Kong.
It was solely when he heard folks screaming for assist that he obtained up to look out the window of his eighth-floor apartment. “The instant I opened the window, I saw the smoke,” he informed NCS.
By then, it was 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday – half-hour after an eyewitness first observed a blaze intensifying in one in all eight residential towers making up the Wang Fuk Court public housing advanced.
Firefighters had arrived on the scene, however the fire had already unfold to different tower blocks, which have been all below renovation and coated in bamboo scaffolding, a standard development materials. Burnt poles have been collapsing off the exteriors as flames raced up the 31-storey high-rises.
Wan, who NCS is figuring out by his surname, grabbed his two canine and his pockets, and fled down an emergency stairwell that smelled of fuel. Just minutes after his evacuation, the fire was declared a Level 4 – the second-highest on a five-tier alarm rating.
Throughout the subsequent few hours, horrified onlookers watched as the advanced – house to greater than 4,000 folks, a lot of them aged – quickly grew to become engulfed in flames. People returning house from work and faculty stood with their briefcases and backpacks, staring on the flickering orange as daylight light.
By dusk, the size of the devastation was changing into clear. Around 6 p.m. the fire was declared a most stage 5 alarm. Community discussion groups lit up as households desperately checked the whereabouts of family members. News channels broadcast pictures that despatched shock waves by way of Hong Kong, a rich metropolis with a powerful monitor file on constructing security.
As surprised residents grappled with the sheer velocity of the fire’s unfold – engulfing seven of the advanced’s eight buildings inside a matter of hours – they raised essential questions on whether or not this catastrophe might have been prevented, pointing to considerations over development security, silent fire alarms, and a dear renovation venture.
Three arrests have been made up to now, with legal and anticorruption probes launched as the federal government faces mounting public strain to reply questions.
After spending the evening at an emergency shelter, Wan and his spouse have been amongst lots of of residents ready desperately for information.
“There’s no home to go back to,” he informed NCS from the sports activities middle that had been transformed right into a shelter, as volunteers and workers walked round distributing meals and drinks.
“We have nothing, not even clothes.”
Questions and probes
At least 94 persons are recognized to have died in the blaze, the deadliest in a long time in the town of some 7.5 million. Hundreds of others stay unaccounted for.
As residents endure an agonizing watch for information, some say there have been early warning indicators and pleas for motion.
A Facebook group that describes itself as a group discussion board for Wang Fuk Court residents exhibits they’d raised considerations in regards to the development netting materials as early as final October – greater than a 12 months in the past. Several posts embody residents sharing what they mentioned have been complaints filed with the Labour Department about potential fire hazards; one submit claimed the Labor Department issued a warning to contractors after shock on-site inspections.
In an announcement despatched to NCS the Labour Department mentioned it had carried out 16 security inspections at Wang Fuk Court between July 2024 and November 2025 “including reviewing whether the protective sheeting (commonly known as ‘scaffold netting’) installed on the Wang Fuk Court scaffolds had product certification meeting the Department’s requirements.”
“The most recent inspection was conducted on November 20, after which the Department again issued a written reminder to the contractors on the necessity of taking appropriate fire prevention measures,” it mentioned.
Hong Kong’s code on bamboo scaffolding security requires all scaffold netting to be fire-retardant. That code just isn’t a legislation – though non-compliance can carry penalties in any legal proceedings.
NCS has tried contacting the development firm concerned by way of a number of related e mail addresses and cellphone numbers, however has not heard again.
Officials and police additionally say they think development supplies discovered on the flats — together with protecting nets, canvas, and plastic covers — failed to meet security requirements. They additionally discovered polystyrene boards, a extremely flammable materials, blocking home windows of a number of flats – which Wan mentioned he had observed inside his constructing staircases earlier than.
Other residents voiced considerations to NCS in regards to the velocity of evacuations and the reliability of their fire alarms. On Wednesday evening, one resident who declined to be named mentioned no authorities got here knocking to inform her to evacuate when the fire started at a close-by block.
Another resident surnamed Au, aged 40, mentioned his household had smelled fire and heard the sound of bamboo scaffolding burning and falling exterior their partitions – however their constructing alarm didn’t ring.
The Independent Commission Against Corruption, Hong Kong’s statutory anti-graft physique, introduced on Thursday that it had arrange a devoted process pressure to examine potential corruption linked to the renovations at Wang Fuk Court.
Separately, the town’s chief introduced on Thursday that every one housing estates present process vital renovations will likely be inspected for security.
The fire struck a neighborhood beloved by many for its abundance of pedestrian streets, huge bike paths and close by mountain climbing trails.
Wang Fuk Court is a part of authorities public housing – a program that goals to hire or promote reasonably priced housing to low-income households at a steep low cost.
Hong Kong is routinely ranked one of many world’s costliest property markets, the place a tiny apartment removed from the town middle can nonetheless eat up half of a month-to-month wage – making these public housing models deeply fascinating. Demand is so excessive that apartment models typically have waitlists that stretch for years.
As of 2024, practically 45% of the town’s inhabitants lives in some type of public housing. That’s greater than 3.3 million folks, a lot of whom depend on this program to make ends meet.
Hundreds or hundreds might now be left homeless after the fire, although the total extent of the injury just isn’t but clear.
Compounding the blow is the truth that many residents in the burned buildings are aged – reflecting Hong Kong’s quickly ageing society as its fertility charge declines. The largest age group in Wang Fuk Court are residents aged 65 and above, in accordance to authorities and property company information.
Wan and his spouse are in their 40s, occupying an apartment initially purchased by his mother and father. But, he mentioned, most of his neighbors are far older. Among new consumers in the advanced, the youngest are at the very least in their 60s, he mentioned.
One resident surnamed Yuen mentioned he was most involved about his mother and father – who’re in their 70s and reside in a separate apartment on the identical ground as him and his spouse. On Wednesday afternoon, Yuen rushed house from work when he heard the information, however wasn’t allowed to enter the constructing, he mentioned.
He hasn’t heard from his mother and father since.
Another evacuee informed NCS on Wednesday he had simply purchased his apartment in March, after residing in the neighborhood for many years. He spent eight months renovating the apartment, an endeavor that value him the equal of hundreds of US {dollars}. He was getting ready to transfer in imminently.
Now, he mentioned, “it’s all burnt.”
