Fire officials said the rescue operation inside a Hong Kong apartment complex that burst into flames on Wednesday was “almost complete”, as the death toll reached 94 on Friday morning and several people remained missing.
Firefighters were combing high-rise buildings on Friday trying to find anyone alive after a massive fire engulfed seven of the eight towers, one of the city’s deadliest blazes ever.
Throughout the morning more families arrived at the Kwong Phuc Estate Community Center adjacent to Vang Phuc Court to identify bodies pulled from burnt buildings. Some names of the deceased have not yet been released to the public.
Derek Armstrong Chan, deputy director of Hong Kong Fire Services, told reporters that rescue teams were prioritizing apartments from which they received more than two dozen calls for assistance during the fire but were unable to reach, adding that the operation was nearing completion.
“We will try to force entry into all units in the seven buildings to ensure there are no other possible casualties,” Chan said.
The fire started on Wednesday afternoon, spreading rapidly to the Wang Phuc Court housing complex in the northern district of Tai Po. The eight-tower property, home to more than 4,600 people, was being renovated and was wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and green netting, which is believed to have allowed the fire to spread.
The fire was mostly contained by Friday morning, although officials said some apartments were still on fire, and they wanted to prevent it from spreading, and re-igniting other parts of the building.
Most of the dead were found in two of the seven towers that caught fire, and most of the survivors were evacuated from the other towers. The number of missing people had not been updated since Thursday morning, when it stood at more than 250.
A crowd-sourced web app collected reports from families about each building, identifying individual apartments in each tower with available details of residents.
“A 41-year-old man went missing at 16:45,” said a report from Block F, where the fire broke out. “His last message was that he was stuck in stairwell numbers 25-26.” Another report confirmed the deaths of a 60-year-old man, a 90-year-old woman and a 40-year-old Indian national who lived with them as domestic help in an 11th-floor apartment. Four people are reported dead in an apartment eight floors above them.
Police and corruption officials are investigating the cause of the fire. Three people from a construction company involved in the years-long renovation of the complex were arrested.
Authorities have focused on the bamboo scaffolding around the building, as well as the green netting covering it, and highly flammable Styrofoam, which authorities have since discovered was used in elevator window coverings on every floor.
This has prompted demands for stronger fire safety laws in the construction sector.
“There is no law that flame-retardant materials must be used,” said Lee Kwang-sing, president of the Hong Kong Institute of Safety Practitioners, according to RTHK.
“This is only stated in the code of practice by the Department of Labor, so many people may not follow the requirements because it is not illegal. But if you turn such code into a mandatory requirement… then it will be another story altogether.”
<a href