Emergency teams in Hong Kong have been working through the night without rest at the large Wang Fook Court public housing complex, where the extraordinary violence that engulfed thousands of people in the afternoon (local time) left at least 44 deaths, decades of heroes and hundreds of lives lost. The former British colony has faced one of its worst tragedies in years, with 279 people still missing and more than 900 residents seeking temporary shelters.
Moreover, 68 people were taken to hospital, 16 of them in critical condition and 25 in serious condition, according to the notes. South China Morning Post. Meanwhile, almost 24 hours after the fire broke out, rescue and firefighting work continues.
Firefighters received an alarm of a fire in an urban building at 14.51 (local time, 07.51 in peninsular Spain) within a few minutes, but the fire spread with devastating speed through several blocks of the residential complex within minutes. At 11.30 (local time) in July this year, phone calls continued at at least three towers.
Hailey, a 19-year-old university student who resides at Wang Fook Court, was in class when the fire broke out. He briefly told El País that according to what we heard on the news, his wife is fine, but her mother is still missing.
The urbanization is undergoing a complete renovation and is surrounded by bamboo scaffolding. These exoskeletons made it easier for the llama to quickly climb through the facades. Police opened a criminal investigation and arrested three people, Rotary Hong Kong reported South China Morning Post (SCMP): Member of the Board of Directors and advisor to the business-based company. They were accused of gross negligence for using unapproved materials in scaffolding networks, and blocking windows with polystyrene, a prohibited practice that turned facades into optimal behavior for the spread of fire.
This hypothesis was strengthened by the discovery of the only blockage that was not seriously affected, namely that in each factory, the windows of the elevator vestibule were sealed with polystyrene, a highly flammable material that can act as an accelerating agent and revive the fire through the walls, and even allow it to reach the interior of the villas. Authorities are now investigating whether this practice extended throughout the renovation work and whether it could have played a decisive role in the rapid expansion of the fire.
This morning, firefighters were able to control the flames in four of the damaged buildings, but rescue operations continued at full capacity and equipment continued to locate victims among the collapsed floors, blackened stairs and calcified floors.
The fire, which was initially classified as a Type 1 emergency, rose in just 30 minutes to Level 4, reaching its maximum, Level 5, at 18.22. This was the first time in 17 years that a fire of this severity broke out in Hong Kong. Pictures published by local media show us inside a bamboo scaffold engulfed in flames, with parts of the protective green trunk collapsing and burning in the street.
The Wang Fook Court complex, located in the Tai Po district (very close to the border with mainland China), consists of eight 31-storey towers with around 2,000 homes within them. It is estimated that there are about 4,600 residents living in apartments with an average size of between 37 and 46 square metres. According to 2021 census data, more than a third of the population is 65 years old or older, and between a quarter and a third are between 40 and 64 years old. The group of buildings forms part of the government’s subsidized housing program and has been inhabited since 1983, according to two-year-old agencies.