A large hearth tore via the Wang Fuk Court docket housing property within the Tai Po district of Hong Kong, killing a minimum of 55 folks and leaving round 279 unaccounted for, in keeping with officers on Thursday. Flames ripped via seven high-rise residential blocks surrounded by bamboo scaffolding and inexperienced building mesh, with one of many lifeless recognized as a firefighter who had been battling the blaze. Over 60 people had been injured and plenty of residents stay trapped or unreachable.
Emergency groups deployed tons of of fireplace automobiles and ambulances, whereas rescue employees strained to fight intense warmth, thick smoke and falling particles. Authorities elevated the alarm to degree 5 — the best potential — as rush-hour evacuation turned chaotic and terrified residents fled into the streets. Many discovered shelter in makeshift group centres, with almost 900 folks reported evacuated.
Eyewitnesses described the hearth spreading swiftly alongside the scaffolding earlier than bursting into inside corridors and stairwells, trapping households inside upper-floor flats. Officers disclosed the blaze started mid-afternoon and rapidly escalated, fed by flammable exterior supplies and worsened by gusty winds. Investigators have arrested three males from the development firm accountable, on suspicion of manslaughter, alleging gross negligence in use of unsafe scaffolding and probably flamable renovation supplies.
The housing complicated, constructed many years in the past beneath a subsidised-ownership scheme and residential to hundreds, had been present process renovation when the hearth broke out. Bamboo scaffolding, nonetheless frequent in native building although beneath stricter regulation, was broadly used to wrap the towers — a reality now central to requires sweeping security opinions.
Hong Kong’s chief pledged a full security audit of all estates beneath restore, promising stringent checks on scaffolding requirements and hearth compliance. The tragedy — the deadliest tower hearth within the metropolis’s decades-long historical past — has reignited public outrage over building security practices and the oversight of high-density housing tasks.
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