The fire that broke out in seven buildings in a residential complex in Hong Kong has already left 83 dead, 76 injured, including eleven firefighters, and at least 279 missing, according to the latest figures released this Thursday by the emergency services. The Fire Department reported that rescue operations inside the buildings are progressing, reported the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post.
The latest information available about the residents trapped inside the buildings indicated that there were 62 people in this situation. Likewise, the rescuers found a new survivor alive, a man located on the 16th floor staircase of one of the affected buildings.
The incident, recorded on Wednesday afternoon, devastated seven of the eight 31-story blocks that make up the Wang Fuk Court complex, in the Tai Po district, and has become the worst urban fire in Hong Kong since 1948. The authorities hope to control the flames this Friday, which were still active in three buildings, while in the other four affected they had already been put out.
They advance floor by floor
The fire started in one of the buildings and spread extremely quickly, fueled by bamboo scaffolding covered with safety mesh, waterproof tarpaulins and highly flammable expanding polystyrene sheets inside the blocks, used in the exterior renovation works that began in July 2024.
The Fire Department deployed 1,250 personnel, 304 emergency vehicles, 26 specialized teams and four drones for aerial surveillance and continues to advance floor by floor in rescue and cooling tasks. The police, for their part, set up a victim identification center at a nearby community center, where photographs of the bodies rescued from the fire are shown to desperate relatives searching for their missing people.
The security forces also arrested two directors and an engineering consultant of the contractor responsible for the works, accused of reckless homicide for the use of materials that would have facilitated the rapid spread of the fire. The city’s chief executive, John Lee, described the tragedy as a “massive catastrophe” and announced the suspension of all campaign events for the December 7 Legislative Council elections, in addition to opening the door to a possible review of the election date. Source: news
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2025-12-05 23:46:00