More than a year before a fire devoured a complex of high-rise towers in Hong Kong, residents alerted officials about potential fire safety violations on a renovation project there.
This week, their worst fears came true in one of the deadliest infernos in Hong Kong’s history.
The fire that started on Wednesday at Wang Fuk Court, a housing complex with about 2,000 apartments, killed at least 128 people by Friday’s tally and injured 78 others. About 200 people are unaccounted for.
What ignited the ferocious fire is not yet known. But as investigators comb through the buildings’ charred shells in search of evidence, they are asking whether negligence played a role in the devastation.
Investigators have focused on the quality of construction materials used for the renovation, such as netting that covered bamboo scaffolding to keep objects from falling on passers-by and polystyrene foam panels installed to protect window glass from breaking.
As far back as September 2024, the estate’s residents had raised concerns to the city government about those materials.
They wrote to the city’s Labor Department saying that the netting may be flammable, according to the residents’ emails reviewed by The New York Times.
They also raised concerns about the foam panels, according to Jason Poon Chuk-hung, a civil engineer-turned-activist who teamed up with the residents in raising their complaints.
On Friday, city officials told reporters that the foam boards were highly flammable and had helped the fire spread at a terrible speed.
The Labor Department, which oversees workplace safety issues, at first wrongly dismissed the residents’ concerns about the netting, claiming that there were no rules on the use of flammable materials on scaffolding, the department acknowledged in a statement. Later, it told residents the materials on the construction site met fire safety requirements, citing documents filed by the contractor, Prestige Construction and Engineering.
In its statement to The Times, the Labor Department confirmed that it had received complaints from residents about the construction netting. It said that it had conducted 16 inspections at Wang Fuk Court since July 2024, most recently a week before the fire. It found multiple violations and warned the contractor about unsafe working conditions on the site, the department said.
The department did not answer questions about what violations it discovered. Its statement said, without providing details, that it had started three “prosecutions” and issued six notices “urging improvement” at Wang Fuk Court before the fire.
Earlier, officials had said that the netting that enveloped scaffoldings at the complex may not have met fire safety standards, which require all scaffolding covers to be made of material that can slow down a fire. On Friday, however, they said the netting was in line with the city’s code, according to preliminary tests. They did not provide details.
They said the blaze raised the temperature inside the building to as high as 930 degrees Fahrenheit and ignited the bamboo scaffolding, which fell and blocked fire exits.
The police arrested two directors and one consultant for the contractor, accusing them of manslaughter and gross negligence, and seized evidence including tender documents, computers, phones and a list of the contractor’s employees.
On Friday, an anticorruption agency arrested eight more people, including four consultants, three subcontractors of scaffolding works, and an intermediary.
Last month, when Chinachem Tower, a commercial building in central Hong Kong, caught fire, some Wang Fuk Court residents took their fears to a Facebook group. Firefighters had found netting and bamboo scaffolding at that building that looked similar to what was used at their complex.
“Everyone must be extra careful with fire during the winter,” one resident wrote.
“There are so many flammable items outside.”
‘They refused’
Renovation works on the complex began last summer. Its eight towers, which were completed in the early 1980s, were undergoing maintenance to comply with a government rule requiring repairs on structures older than 30 years.
The renovation was initially slated to cost nearly $40 million, to be borne mainly by the nearly 2,000 households there. Prestige Construction and Engineering, which was incorporated in Hong Kong in 2004, won the contract.
But some residents fretted that the contractor was inflating costs while compromising on safety. They filed a complaint with the Labor Department in September 2024, two months after the scaffolding went up, according to the department and Mr. Poon.
They complained about the foam panels that covered the windows, Mr. Poon said.
Such panels are used on construction sites to provide insulation, fill voids and as temporary protection, according to Tony Za, the former chairman of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers’ building division. What is not clear in this case, he said, is the grade of material the contractor used.
Pictures shared online and interviews with residents show that many windows at Wang Fuk Court were completely sealed with the material. In one building, the police found windows of the elevator lobby were covered by foam boards on every floor.
Because of the boards, people could not see out their windows and realize they were in danger when the fire broke out, said Lau Yu Hung, a 78-year-old resident.
Another point of contention was the netting that enveloped the scaffolding erected all around the buildings. At first, the department told the residents, erroneously, that current regulations “do not cover flame retardant standards for scaffolding netting.”
Frustrated, the residents reached out to Mr. Poon, who runs a nonprofit group, Chinat Monitor, that tracks allegations of corruption in the city’s construction industry and lobbies the government for better oversight.
One of Mr. Poon’s causes is flammable netting, which poses a particular risk in Hong Kong because buildings stand very close to one another and winds can spread fires easily. Residents of housing complexes such as Wang Fuk Court, who tend to be older, are less able to flee to safety or hear fire alarms, he said.
Out of concern for older residents, Mr. Poon said he had been trying to raise awareness about such issues. He even inspects constructions sites on his own, at times cutting off netting and setting it on fire to prove that the material violates safety rules.
Mr. Poon said he had been pushing city officials for about a year and half to pay attention to the issue. “But they refused,” he said.
When the residents of Wang Fuk Court came to him, Mr. Poon eagerly took on their case.
He admonished officials at the Labor Department for misstating the fire risks at the construction site and pointed them to the applicable ordinances they had missed.
Later, the department corrected the mistake Mr. Poon had pointed out, acknowledging that its response to the complaints had been “unclear and caused misunderstanding,” it said in its emailed statement to The Times.
Still, it found no fault with the netting that was worrying some residents, according to emails seen by the Times. Staff members had reviewed quality certificates submitted by the contractor, it said in a written response to residents in December, and the netting was in line with the city’s standard.
“If any violations of occupational safety and health laws are found, we will take action,” one official wrote in an email.
The finding appears to rely on the contractors’ own submissions. The department did not respond to questions on whether it conducted its own tests to verify the quality of materials.
Construction professionals say fraud is a common problem with such certificates in Hong Kong, though there was no evidence so far that this was the case with the Wang Fuk construction.
“Whether the contractor purchased the same material to be used on the site is another issue that needs to be investigated,” said Mr. Za, the former head of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers’ building division.
Selam Gebrekidan is an investigative reporter for The Times based in Hong Kong.
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