The complex where the fire broke out has 1,984 apartments which house around 4 thousand tenants. The firefighters: «Difficult rescue operations due to excessively high temperatures»
At least 44 people died after that a big fire it developed in several buildings of a residential complex of Hong Kong. The data on the disaster was provided by Governor John Lee who declared, while the flames are still engulfing the buildings after almost eleven hours, That 279 people are missing and at least 29 injured, “7 of whom are in critical condition.”
Three peopleincluding two directors and a consultant of the contractor responsible for the renovation of the Wang Fuk Court residential complex in Hong Kong, were arrested for manslaughter. The local newspaper reports it South China Morning Post. According to what was reported by the «SCMP», the three would have used non-compliant materials in the scaffolding nets and sealed the windows with polystyrene, which contributed to the rapid spread of the fire.
The fire alarm, taken at 3.30pm local time (8.30am in Italy), it quickly rose from level 1 to level 4 and then up to level 5, the highest level recorded in Hong Kong in the last 17 years. The fire apparently broke out in a karaoke bar e the flames would have spread to the skyscrapers through the bamboo scaffolding that surrounded the complex undergoing renovation, work that had caused discontent among the 4 thousand residents of the 1,984 apartments in the buildings.
The fire, which according to fire chief Andy Yeung Yan-kin, cited by South China Morning Post, it would have spread more quickly due to the polystyrene found in buildingsthen spread to nearby buildings, such as the Tai Po Baptist Elementary School, forcing the police to clear two other complexes in the adjacent Kwong Fuk neighborhood.
Older residents, some of them in wheelchairs, have found shelter in nearby temporary shelters which are hosting at least 900 displaced people, but dozens and dozens of people are still trapped together with at least a hundred domestic animals.
«The temperature inside the buildings is very highit is difficult for us to enter and go upstairs to conduct firefighting and rescue operations.” Said Derek Armstrong Chan, deputy director of the Hong Kong Fire Brigade, who is working to put out the vast fire that is burning the residential complex in Tai Po district. “The debris and scaffolding of the affected buildings are collapsing.”
Governor John Lee said that the causes of the “far-reaching disaster” are not yet clear and that the Housing Authority and the Department of Buildings will conduct an investigation into the accident: Departments will collect samples from building scaffolding to verify compliance with established standards. «I am saddened by their deaths and express my deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to those who were injured. We will provide all necessary assistance,” Lee told reporters.
Xi’s condolences for the victims of the fire
The Chinese president Xi Jinping sent a message of condolences for the victims and called for an all-out effort to put out the flames and minimize the number of deaths and damage caused by the fire.