The death toll from Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades rose to 128 on Friday, as firefighters combed through a smoldering high-rise apartment complex and the authorities canceled what they called “nonessential” activities to focus on the tragedy.
Hope of finding survivors has dwindled, with many residents of the densely packed Wang Fuk Court apartment towers still missing. Chris Tang, Hong Kong’s secretary of security, in announcing the latest toll on Friday, said that about 200 people were unaccounted for and that the government expected to find more bodies. More than 70 other people were hospitalized, some in critical condition.
Among the victims was a 37-year-old firefighter, Ho Wai-ho, a nine-year veteran who collapsed at the scene of the fire and later died at a hospital, the government said.
Firefighters were still dousing parts of the complex with water on Friday to extinguish embers. Smoke could be seen wafting from the charred buildings, which were crisscrossed with bamboo scaffolding in various states of disrepair.
“Our firefighting operation is almost complete,” Derek Armstrong Chan, a deputy director at the fire department, told reporters.
Family members seeking their missing loved ones gathered at a nearby community center where they were shown photographs of victims, many of whom had been identified. Other people stood outside the housing complex, in the northern district of Tai Po, waiting anxiously for news of missing loved ones.
The massive blaze started on Wednesday afternoon at one of the complex’s 32-story buildings before quickly engulfing six other towers. Investigators said there were early indications that substandard flammable construction netting had been used to shroud the buildings, which were undergoing renovation work. They also said combustible polystyrene foam appeared to have been used to cover windows, to protect them from damage.
Two directors and a consultant linked to a construction company that installed the construction materials were arrested on Thursday. The police said they were being investigated for manslaughter and gross negligence.
The authorities said they were inspecting 11 other private residential building projects where the company had been doing work.
The disaster has stunned residents of Hong Kong, where high-rise living and the sight of construction sites covered in green netting and bamboo are part of everyday life. Many people have responded by raising relief funds and volunteering to help distribute donated goods to people left homeless by the fire.
The government is likely to come under increasing pressure to explain why the fire could not have been prevented. The disaster comes at a politically sensitive time for the local government, which was handpicked by China but is determined to show it is up to the task of running the city. Hong Kong is still semiautonomous, despite the freedoms it lost when China imposed a national security law in 2020, and next month it will hold elections — devoid of opposition parties — for only the second time since then.
Late on Thursday, the government said in a statement that it would cancel “nonessential public activities” to devote time and resources to helping the victims of the fire and their families. It also said it would inspect all sites in the city that are currently undergoing external wall construction or renovations involving scaffolding and protective nets.
About 500 residents of Wang Fuk Court are currently dispersed across nine temporary housing shelters. The government said it would provide a subsidy of 10,000 Hong Kong dollars, or $1,284, to affected households and set up a separate 300 million Hong Kong dollar, or $38 million, fund “to assist residents and support all relevant work.”
The government also said it might accelerate the phasing out of bamboo scaffolding in favor of fire-resistant metal scaffolding. So far, the authorities have not indicated that bamboo played a major role in the rapid spread of the fire on Wednesday.
The fire was the deadliest in Hong Kong since 1948, when nearly 200 people were killed in a blaze at a warehouse. That fire took place when the city was still a British colony.
David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
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