Three arrests have now been made following the still unextinguished fire in seven high-rise residential towers in Hong Kong. The authorities reported this on Wednesday. According to the South China Morning Post this concerns two directors and an advisor of the contractor behind the renovation work. They are all suspected of manslaughter.
The death toll from the fire in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district has now risen to 55, the local fire brigade reports. According to the authorities, there is no contact with another 279 people. 68 people have been taken to hospital, of whom 16 are in critical condition. It is already the deadliest fire Hong Kong has seen in 63 years.
The fire brigade states that the fire in four of the seven affected residential towers has now been brought under control again. More than a thousand firefighters are involved in the operation. Hong Kong Mayor John Lee announced a criminal investigation into the fire on Wednesday.
According to a reporter from the South China Morning Post many devastated residents wait at shelters for their missing loved ones. An elderly man tells the newspaper how his six-month-old granddaughter went missing with her grandmother. They were staying on the 21st floor of one of the residential towers when the fire broke out. He breaks down in tears as he thinks about the hours that have passed. “It breaks my heart to think that the baby hasn’t had food for 20 hours.”
Anger over flammable material
According to a BBC reporter, the vote in Hong Kong has skipped from fear to anger. According to the news channel, many residents question the building complex’s inadequate safety regulations. For example, several residents stated that they did not hear any fire alarms when the fire broke out.
On Wednesday, seven of the eight residential towers of the Wang Fuk Court complex caught fire. The fire was probably able to spread quickly via bamboo scaffolding that had been erected along the building complex due to renovation work. The complex, where around four thousand mostly elderly people live, has been renovated since July 2024. There was also Styrofoam — a highly flammable material — near the windows.
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The number of deaths is rising
Reuters
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