Hong Kong high-rise inferno: Three arrested as authorities investigating tower fires that killed dozens

An inferno ravaged a high-rise apartment complex in Hong Kong on Wednesday, killing at least 44 people, leaving nearly 280 others missing and prompting the police to arrest three construction officials on a charge of suspected manslaughter, accusing them of “gross negligence.”

The police also opened an investigation into the building materials on the exterior walls of the towers because they were suspected of not meeting fire-safety standards, potentially leading to the rapid spread of the blaze, the authorities said at a news conference early Thursday. But the exact cause of the fire was not immediately known.

By early Thursday morning, more than 15 hours after a pall of black smoke rose from the towers in the Tai Po district, firefighters were gradually bringing the blaze under control, officials said. But it was still burning.

A number of residents of the 32-storey towers, which hold about 2,000 apartments, were believed to be trapped, raising fears that the death toll may rise. In addition to the 40 people killed at the site of the fire, four more died at the hospital, officials said.

Chou Wing Yin, an official at the Hong Kong Fire Services Department, said at a news conference on Thursday that of 100 injured residents treated at the scene, 45 were hospitalised in critical condition. At least 279 others were missing, officials told reporters at a briefing.

Police and fire services officials said they had received numerous calls for help from residents trapped inside the buildings.

Herman Yiu Kwan-ho, a former district councillor in Tai Po, said earlier that he was in touch with some residents, some of whom live in one of the buildings that caught fire.

“More than 10 residents said their family members are still at their homes,” he said by phone.

The eight apartment towers, called Wang Fuk Court, are in the New Territories, a stretch of land opposite Hong Kong Island that connects to the border with mainland China.

Built in the early 1980s, the towers were undergoing repairs and were sheathed in bamboo scaffolding, which is widely used in Hong Kong to construct and repair buildings.

The government announced this year that bamboo would be phased out as scaffolding in favour of steel, which it said posed less of a fire risk.

Chris Tang, Hong Kong’s secretary for security, told reporters that the police were conducting an investigation after firefighters discovered that protective netting and plastic sheeting on the buildings’ exterior walls may have spread the fire much more violently and rapidly.

Lai Yee Chung, a senior police superintendent, said the authorities suspected that the materials used on the exterior walls of the buildings, including protective netting and sheeting, did not meet fire-safety standards.

In one of the buildings, foam boards known to be flammable were installed outside elevator lobby windows on every floor.

The authorities believe there was “gross negligence” on the part of those responsible for the construction, “leading to this accident and the rapid spread of the fire and such serious casualties,” she said.

The Buildings Department and Housing Bureau will conduct spot checks on protective films and netting at other construction sites to determine whether they meet requirements, John Lee, Hong Kong’s chief executive, said earlier.

Materials like bamboo allow fire to jump across fire breaks from floor to floor, said Jonathan Barnett, the managing director of Basic Expert, a fire and forensic engineering company with offices in London and Melbourne, Australia. That creates an almost unforgiving challenge for firefighters, he said.

The Hong Kong Fire Services Department said that it had sent 760 rescuers to the site but that falling debris, some of it from the burning bamboo scaffolds, made it difficult for firefighters to get into the buildings.

A firefighter named Ho Wai-ho was among the dead and another firefighter was being treated for heat exhaustion, said Andy Yeung Yan-kin, Hong Kong’s director of fire services.

“The temperatures inside the buildings concerned are very high, so it’s quite difficult for us to enter the building and go upstairs and conduct firefighting and rescue operation,” Derek Armstrong Chan, deputy director of the fire department, told reporters.

The hours spent battling the blaze underscored the difficulties of containing a fire in high-rise buildings. Images from the scene showed water jets from fire hoses stopping far below the top floors of the buildings.

Firefighters struggled to reach the tallest flames with hoses, and fire truck ladders appeared to reach only halfway up the buildings.

Many of those rescued from the building complex were older residents. Tong Pingmoon, 74, a resident of Block 1, said he smelled smoke about 3 pm Wednesday.

Soon afterward, a firefighter banged on the door and told him and his wife that a building next door had caught fire. Thinking they would be safe, they refused to leave, he said.

But the smoke soon got worse, Mr Tong said. The couple hid in the bathroom, stuffed the gap under the door with wet towels, turned on the ventilation fan, and called for help, he said. Rescuers arrived at 6pm, he said.

“We were so lucky,” said Mr Tong, who relayed his ordeal from a nearby school that had been turned into a shelter, where he sat wrapped in a blanket. “It was pitch dark,” he said of the escape from the building. “We wouldn’t have made it if we had to head out by ourselves.”

The fire comes at a politically sensitive time for Hong Kong, a former British colony that is now a special administrative region of China. The Beijing-backed government has scheduled elections for December 7 for the city’s Legislative Council.

National security legislation imposed by Beijing after the city’s democracy protests in 2019 has limited who can run for the Legislature to those deemed unlikely to challenge the wishes of Beijing’s leaders. The Hong Kong government has been trying to persuade citizens to still vote.

Political parties said Wednesday that they would temporarily suspend campaigning in response to the fire.

Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, expressed his condolences and urged “all-out rescue efforts to minimise loss,” according to Xinhua, the state-run news agency.

Mr Xi told national government agencies to help Hong Kong extinguish the blaze, carry out search-and-rescue operations and help households rebuild after the fire.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.