Officials said Thursday that the fire in four buildings of the Wang Fuk Court housing complex in the Tai Po neighborhood has been extinguished and the rest of the fire has been brought under control.
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But rescue workers are still trying to reach people trapped on the upper floors of the complex, where at least 279 people are missing.
Resident Lawrence Lee said he still has not heard from his wife, who he believes is trapped in their apartment.
“When the fire broke out, I told her on the phone to run. But once she came out of the flat, the corridor and stairs were filled with smoke and there was darkness all around, so she had no option but to run back to the flat,” he said.
According to the Hong Kong Fire Service Department, the death toll from the disaster is 65, including one firefighter. According to the hospital authority, more than 70 people have been injured, many of whom are suffering from burns and smoke inhalation.
Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said people in mainland China were “watching in shock” at the tragedy.
Yu said, “I think many people in China feel a lot of sympathy and empathy for those affected. Tens of millions of them live in dense urban areas, in high-rise buildings, not unlike the buildings that caught fire in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district.”
Construction directors arrested on suspicion of murder
The fire broke out in bamboo scaffolding and construction netting on Wednesday afternoon and then spread to seven buildings in the complex.
Authorities suspect that some materials on the exterior walls of the high-rise buildings did not meet fire resistance standards and the fire spread unusually quickly.
Police also said they found Styrofoam, which is highly flammable, attached to windows on each floor near the elevator lobby of an unoccupied tower.
Three men from a construction company handling maintenance work at the site have been arrested on suspicion of murder. The men – company directors and an engineering consultant – were suspected of being “grossly negligent”, said Senior Superintendent of Police Eileen Chung.
Amid construction safety concerns, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said all housing estates undergoing major reforms will be inspected immediately, and he announced plans to phase out bamboo scaffolding.
Alex Webb, a fire safety engineer at CSIRO Infrastructure Technologies in Australia, said the disaster was “quite shocking” because regulations normally require buildings to be spaced apart to prevent a fire from spreading from one building to another. “Typically, they don’t extend beyond the original building,” Webb said.
‘Seriously review fire safety’
Analysts said public anger may be directed toward government building and fire safety regulators.
“I believe we need to seriously review fire safety and site safety management throughout the industry, including government oversight,” said Chow Sze Kit, president of the Hong Kong Construction Industry Employees General Union.
The housing complex has about 2,000 apartments for about 4,800 residents, including many older people who would have struggled to evacuate quickly.
It was built in the 1980s and was undergoing a major renovation project, which Hong Kong’s anti-corruption agency said would investigate possible corruption.
Lee said the government would set up a HK$300m (US$38.6m) fund to help residents.
Several Chinese companies and groups – including Xiaomi, Xpeng and Geely as well as Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s charity foundation – have pledged to donate millions to fire victims.
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