Hong Kong authorities said Thursday, November 27, that the death toll from a fire that ravaged an apartment complex now stands at 65 dead. According to a spokesperson for the territorial government, 70 people were also injured, including ten firefighters.
The fire broke out on Wednesday shortly before 3 p.m. (8 a.m. in Paris) in a building complex of eight towers of around thirty floors, located in the Tai Po district, in the north of the city. More than twenty-four hours after the start of the conflagration, the fire was extinguished in four of the seven towers affected by the flames and under control in three others, firefighters announced to the press on Thursday. At the end of the afternoon, firefighters were still dousing the charred and smoking towers with water, still burning in places.
According to the authorities, the fire quickly spread to seven of the eight towers of this complex dating from 1983 and comprising nearly 2,000 homes. It was being renovated. Alert level 5, the highest, was triggered and firefighters tried all night to contain the blaze. Around 900 residents were evacuated to temporary centers and dozens more were hospitalized, some in critical condition.
Fire red alert
The causes of the fire have not yet been precisely established. However, police arrested three executives from the company in charge of the renovation work, accused of negligence after abandoned flammable materials were found. They are likely to be charged with manslaughter.
The facades of the towers were covered with bamboo scaffolding – as is traditional in Hong Kong – and wrapped in nets and plastic sheeting. Police suspect that several of these materials did not meet fire safety standards and an anti-corruption investigation has been launched.
Weather-wise, winds of around 14 km/h also fanned the fire and facilitated its spread from one building to another. Hong Kong has been on red fire alert since Monday, the highest level, due to the wind and a relative humidity level of 16%, the lowest recorded since measurements began in 1984.
Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China with 7.5 million inhabitants, is one of the most densely populated places in the world. This financial center, where space is limited and real estate prices are among the highest on the planet, is famous for its skyscrapers rising around its bay. Recent decades have been marked by the construction of a profusion of residential towers that can have more than 50 floors.
