A catastrophic fire has torn through a high-rise apartment complex in northern Hong Kong, leaving a city in mourning and demanding answers. The blaze at the Wang Fuk Court estate has claimed at least 128 lives, a number officials fear will rise significantly as search efforts continue.
A City Gripped by Grief and Anger
For nearly two days, a man known only as Mr Lau desperately tried to contact his cousin, Mei Lan, who lived in the tower with her husband and children. He first saw the smoke on Wednesday afternoon. By Friday, her phone still rang unanswered. Mei Lan and her family are among the approximately 200 people still unaccounted for, a figure that includes 89 bodies which are yet to be visually identified.
The scene around the charred building is one of profound sorrow. At a nearby community centre, families of victims walked in to identify the dead, while others emerged in floods of tears. Outside a repurposed school serving as an evacuation shelter, one man sobbed for his missing parents. "I don't expect them to still be alive, I only want you to tell me they're gone so I can stop missing them," he cried, directing his anguish at Hong Kong's Chief Executive, John Lee. "What is he doing? All he does is walk around and hold press conferences."
Echoes of Grenfell and Accusations of Negligence
The inferno, which burned for more than two days and spread to six of the complex's eight towers, has drawn immediate and stark comparisons to London's Grenfell Tower disaster. The parallels extend beyond the scale of the tragedy to the rampant questions about negligent safety standards and potential corruption.
Authorities moved quickly, arresting three employees of the construction company on Thursday and launching an independent corruption commission. By Friday, two employees from a local architecture firm were also reportedly arrested.
However, these actions did little to quell public fury. The fire has exposed a deep-seated anger that while the government has prioritised 'national security', a known safety hazard was allowed to fester. The Wang Fuk Court was undergoing renovations, a project that began in July 2024 with a contract worth HK$330 million (£33.5m) awarded to Prestige Construction & Engineering Co.
Preliminary investigations identified unauthorised, highly flammable styrofoam boards in windows on every level as a primary cause of the fire's intensity. A resident who lost both parents, Mr Au, confirmed the windows in their flat were sealed with this material. He also claimed the fire alarm failed to sound, preventing a timely evacuation.
A History of Warnings Ignored
Concerns about the renovation work were not new. Residents had previously lodged complaints with authorities, specifically about the scaffolding netting that encased the building. The Hong Kong labour department confirmed it had received these complaints and had conducted 16 inspection visits to the site, issuing multiple written warnings about the need for improved fire safety measures as recently as the week before the fire.
The department stated that current safety regulations "do not cover flame retardant standards" for such netting, and as the construction did not involve open flames, the risk was deemed low. This response has now been thrown into sharp and tragic relief.
For grieving families like Mr Au's, the arrests feel like a hollow gesture. "Whatever the government does is useless," he said. "It's already over. Arresting a few people to take responsibility can't help us. Proper supervision should have been in place from the very beginning." As Hong Kong mourns its deadliest fire in over 70 years, the demand for accountability grows louder.
