An outpouring of grief swept across Hong Kong on Saturday as an official three-day mourning period began with a moment of silence for the 128 people killed in the city’s deadliest fire.
City leader John Lee, along with senior ministers and dozens of top civil servants, stood in silence for three minutes on Saturday morning outside the government headquarters, where the flags of China and Hong Kong were flown at half-mast.
Hours earlier, citizens laid flowers near the charred shell of the residential complex Vang Phuc Court, which burned for more than 40 hours.
A memorial placed at the site reads, “May your souls live happily ever after in heaven.”
The government said condolence centers have been set up throughout Hong Kong for the public to sign condolence books.
Families are searching hospitals and victim identification centers in hopes of finding their loved ones, with about 200 people still reported missing and 89 bodies unidentified.
On Friday, the city’s anti-corruption watchdog arrested eight people in connection with the fire, which was the world’s worst residential building fire since the 1980s.
Flames spread rapidly through a housing estate in the city’s northern Tai Po district on Wednesday afternoon, engulfing seven of the eight high-rise buildings in the densely populated complex.
Officials said the cause had not yet been determined, but preliminary investigations showed that the fire started in protective netting on the bottom floor of one of the towers and that “highly flammable” foam boards, as well as bamboo scaffolding, had contributed to its spread.
The fire service chief, Andy Yeung, said he found that the alarm systems in all eight apartment blocks were “defective”, and he vowed to take action against the contractors.
Residents told Agence France-Presse that they heard no fire alarm and went door to door to alert neighbors to the danger.
A man surnamed Fung said he was visiting the housing estate daily to search for his 80-year-old mother-in-law.
“She’s on antibiotics… so she’s always sleeping. There was no fire alarm, so she wouldn’t have known there was a fire,” he said.
The city’s anti-corruption watchdog said the eight people arrested on Friday included “consultants, scaffolding subcontractors and middlemen of (the) project”.
On Thursday, police said they had arrested three people on suspicion of carelessly leaving foam packaging at the fire site.
On Friday, dozens were still in hospital, 11 of whom were in critical condition, and 21 were listed as “critical”.
Security chief Chris Tang said, “We do not rule out the possibility that police will find more charred remains when they enter (the building) for detailed investigation and evidence collection.”
At a hospital, a woman named Wong was searching for her sister-in-law and her sister-in-law’s twin, but to no avail.
“We still haven’t found them,” the 38-year-old man said. “So we’re going to different hospitals and asking if they have good news.”
The government said police had activated a specialist disaster victim identification system to help locate missing people.
“A building caught fire and in less than 15 minutes it spread to two more blocks,” witness Mui, 77, told AFP.
“It was burnt red, I shudder to think about it.”
The fire was Hong Kong’s worst since 1948, when at least 135 people were killed in a blaze following an explosion.
Deadly fires were a regular scourge in densely populated Hong Kong, especially in poor neighborhoods, but improved safety measures have made them much less common.
Tang said a full investigation into the cause of the fire could take up to four weeks.
The government said Friday that authorities had found temporary housing for about 800 people.
Nine emergency shelters were also operational, accommodating approximately 720 people overnight.
A spontaneous community effort to help firefighters and the displaced has become a well-oiled machine. Separate supply stations for clothing, food, and household goods were set up in a public square near the towers, as well as booths providing medical and psychological care.
So many donations were made that organizers issued a call on social media saying no more were needed.
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