THE NEW YORK TIMES: Hong Kong contractors used unsafe netting at fire site, officials say

Hong Kong officials have said that contractors at the ill-fated housing estate where a fire killed more than 150 people had blanketed buildings with substandard scaffolding netting, and then tried to conceal the unsafe material.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption said that after a summer typhoon, some of the scaffolding netting used at the Wang Fuk Court housing estate in Hong Kong was replaced with cheaper material that did not meet fire-safety standards.

To fool inspectors, netting that met the standards was installed at the base of the scaffolding, where samples are usually taken. Netting is used to protect people below from materials that may fall from bamboo scaffolding, which workers in Hong Kong use when repairing building exteriors.

The findings emerged as the death toll from Wednesday’s blaze rose to 151, with police still combing the towers for bodies and evidence of identification. More than 40 people were still missing. The work of locating and identifying remains would take another three weeks, officials said.

In a sign of how intensely the fires had raged, police said that some bodies were so severely burned that they had been reduced to ashes, and they acknowledged that they might not be able to recover the remains of all the missing people.

The latest findings about what contributed to Hong Kong’s worst fire in decades have raised sharp questions about the city’s construction industry and the government’s ability to police it. The probe has exposed gaps in oversight that allowed unsafe material to be installed across multiple buildings — not just the substandard netting, but also flammable polystyrene foam boards that officials said caused the fire to spread rapidly.

The revelations could further stoke public anger over the disaster, especially because residents had tried for more than a year to warn officials about hazards at the site, including the netting.

Authorities had said last week that the protective netting at Wang Fuk Court met fire-safety standards, citing preliminary testing. The security secretary, Chris Tang, said Monday that earlier samples had been taken from the ground floor of a building that had been unaffected by the fire.

The police and anti-corruption agency said that 14 people so far have been arrested, including engineering consultants, contractors and scaffolding subcontractors.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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