The fire that blazed through a cramped Hong Kong apartment complex and killed at least 128 people this week has become a major test for the city’s Beijing-backed leaders, who have tried to win back public trust after mass protests by promising better lives for everyday Hong Kongers.
Hong Kong authorities have said that the flames spread unusually quickly across the eight towers of government-subsidized housing. Dozens of Wang Fuk Court’s 4,600 residents were trapped inside the 31-story buildings as the inferno burned for 43 hours before being largely doused by 10:18 a.m. local time Friday.
Most people who died did so on the scene, Chris Tang, the city’s secretary for security, said in a news conference Friday afternoon. There were 89 unidentified bodies and around 110 other people who were unaccounted for, he added.
As rescue efforts enter their third day, public outcry has grown over perceived failures of oversight and emergency response that allowed so many to die. That anger may undermine efforts by the government to prove it can be responsive to people’s needs without giving locals a greater say in who rules Hong Kong.
“What makes it such a tragedy is that this disaster could have been mitigated or even prevented,” said Lokman Tsui, a research fellow at the University of Toronto who is writing a book about autocratic rule in Hong Kong, his hometown.
Residents told local media that the alarms in their building did not go off. Others accused the renovation contractor of ignoring complaints about fire hazards and posted photos of cigarette butts from workers who allegedly were smoking on-site.
Elderly tenants — nearly 40 percent of residents in the complex were 65 or older, a 2021 census found — may have been unable to escape thanks to the delayed warning, their neighbors said.
“It should be a wake-up call,” Tsui said. “Hong Kong is starting to show signs of failed governance.”
In October, the Hong Kong Labor Department responded to a concerned resident with the assessment that the risk of safety nets around the scaffolding catching fire was “relatively low,” according to text of the exchange posted on Facebook.
Residents had “raised alarm bells” with multiple government departments in early 2024 about the building, and the departments “all said things were fine,” said Michael Mo, a former Hong Kong district councillor who is now a doctoral candidate at Newcastle University in Britain. “It’s typical, careless bureaucracy,” he said.
Hong Kong’s Chief Executive’s Office and departments of fire, labor and information services did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
China put an end to massive pro-democracy protests with sweeping national security lawsin 2020 that limited candidates for elections in the former British colony to “patriots” approved by Beijing.
It’s possible that local elections slated for Dec. 7 will be postponed to avoid the tragedy influencing turnout and voter choice, especially in the Tai Po constituency, said Sonny Lo, a political commentator based in Hong Kong.
According to Beijing, the city’s new political order was meant to not just restore order in the Asian financial hub, but also to tackle public discontent over economic inequality, expensive housing and ineffective government.
Lack of access to affordable housing has long been a deep source of dissatisfaction in Hong Kong. Space is limited in the mountainous territory in part because a handful of major property developers bought up land and prioritized high-end condos to maximize profit.
In China’s official narrative, these bread-and-butter problems — not a desire for more democratic elections — fueled discontent, which was fanned into opposition to its rule by shadowy “hostile foreign forces.”
The leadership in Beijing will see the fire as a failure of local authorities in Hong Kong, not as a failure of its priorities, said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London.
“The more they can say it is a local government matter, the more they can deflect blame from themselves,” Tsang said.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who called for an “all-out” rescue effort Wednesday, has said that all of Beijing’s interventions in Hong Kong politics were designed to deliver prosperity for residents.
The territory’s newly installed “patriotic” leaders should address difficulties in daily life and make sure that “all citizens in Hong Kong share more fully and fairly in the fruits of development,” he said during a visit in 2022 to mark the 25th anniversary of the British handover.
Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee on Thursday announced a $38 million fund to house displaced residents and promised a full investigation to determine the causes of the fire. Each household will initially received emergency relief funds of $1,300.
Chinese companies and the government in Guangdong province, across from Hong Kong in mainland China, have helped supply medical supplies and equipment, but Lee said Thursday the local fire services could handle the crisis themselves without assistance from firefighters or soldiers from Shenzhen.
Hong Kong’s corruption watchdog raided the consultancy that handled maintenance work at the housing complex Friday and arrested two of the firms’ directors as part of an investigation into possible graft, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
Police had already arrested three people from the contractor that was renovating the external walls of the apartment on suspicion of manslaughter Thursday.
The company, Prestige Construction & Engineering, was fined twice in 2023 for failing to meet safety standards on other projects, the South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, reported.
Local police and firefighters have yet to determine the fire’s cause, but many Hong Kongers have questioned whether various construction materials met fire safety standards.
Bamboo scaffolding, plastic mesh safety netting and solid foam covers for windows have all been identified as having potentially accelerated the fire’s spread.
Tang said Friday that falling poles of bamboo had blocked the entrance to the buildings, preventing firefighters from entering and making it difficult for ladders to be placed in an optimal position, hindering efforts to extinguish the fire.
These explanations are unlikely to be accepted by the public in a city where the vast majority of people live in similar high-rise buildings and where bamboo scaffolding has long been commonplace, analysts said.
“Blaming the bamboo scaffolding is probably very stupid on the part of the government,” said Tsang, the SOAS professor. “It will create the impression that the government is trying to distract attention rather than confront the real issue of what really caused the fire.”
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