As Recovery Efforts Expand, Officials Investigate Renovations Contractor in Devastating Hong Kong Apartment Complex Fire

Recovery crews are locating dozens of bodies in the upper floors of a Hong Kong apartment complex now that the flames have been extinguished after 40 hours of burning the Wang Fuk Court apartment complex. Many remain unidentified.The death toll rose to 128 on Friday while about 200 remain unaccounted for after the blaze. Fire officials said one firefighter died attempting to put out the fire, which spread rapidly when bamboo scaffolding, green plastic netting, and foam boards used on windows served as kindling to spread the flames to the close-knit buildings undergoing renovation. The city’s security secretary, Chris Tang, said that the foam panels burst the glass, which enabled the fire to spread quickly.Residents in mainland China reported smelling and seeing the smoke from the apartment complex blaze.Hong Kong officials have arrested eight contractors connected to the renovation project. The individuals—seven men and one woman aged 40 to 63—included four directors and project managers of the project, run by the Prestige Construction & Engineering Company, two scaffolding subcontractors, and one “middleman,” the Independent Commission Against Corruption said in a statement. The commission said it established the investigation because of immense public interest. The South China Morning Post reported that the Prestige company had previous violations as recently as 2023. The commission has conducted a search of their offices and seized documents. The eight buildings in the Tai Po district near China’s mainland border contained 2,000 apartment units housing 4,800 residents. Hong Kong’s secretary of home affairs, Alice Mak, announced that an emergency fund set up by the government worth about $38 million had been nearly doubled by donations from the public. Families of each person killed will receive “condolence money” — about $25,700 in U.S. dollars — and assistance with funeral arrangements. Each household in the apartment complex will also receive $1,285 in emergency funds and another $6,425 to find living arrangements. Displaced residents were staying in temporary shelters including a school, a shopping center, and facilities set up by nongovernmental aid groups while spontaneous volunteer groups set up donation centers in the park next to the complex. Hong Kong’s welfare secretary, Chris Sun, said additional welfare and psychological counseling is being arranged while the city’s financial secretary, Paul Chan, said banks, insurance companies, and creditors were being asked to delay debt repayments and expedite claims.While 26 search and rescue teams completed a room-by-room hunt for survivors, Hong Kong fire officials said just 39 bodies have been identified. More than 2,300 firefighters and medical personnel have participated in the emergency operation, in which 12 firefighters and 68 others were injured. It is the deadliest fire for Hong Kong since 1948 when a commercial district fire killed 176.Animal welfare groups were also saving pets and trying to reunite them with their owners. The Hong Kong SPCA said it had saved or recovered 92 pets out of 243 reports of lost animals. First responders reported that some of the alarms in the complex had not worked when tested. While investigators try to identify the cause of the fire, one resident of the building told the South China Morning Post that she had seen one of the workers on the scaffolding smoking, but didn’t think much of the alarm she did hear.“I thought about not evacuating at first, figuring the fire was far away, and there was no need to run. It’s already like a chain of boats on fire with no one putting out the flames, they’re just watching the buildings burn,” she said, describing the rapid spread of the fire.

As Recovery Efforts Expand, Officials Investigate Renovations Contractor in Devastating Hong Kong Apartment Complex Fire

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