Hong Kong remembers victims of fires that killed more than 128 people

Hong Kong on Saturday mourned the deaths of 128 people found dead in a massive fire in a high-rise apartment complex. Several days after the disaster, 200 people remain missing, and the death toll is likely to rise further.

Authorities are investigating possible corruption and the use of dangerous materials during renovation work at the Wang Fu court complex and have arrested 11 people in connection with the city’s worst fire in nearly 80 years.

Rescue efforts at the scene in Tai Po, near the border with mainland China, ended on Friday, but police said more bodies could be found as they searched burned-out buildings as part of an ongoing investigation.

The fire broke out on Wednesday afternoon and quickly consumed seven of the complex’s eight 32-storey blocks. The blocks were wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh, and layered with foam insulation for the renovation.

Authorities said the fire alarms in the apartment complex, which is home to more than 4,600 people, were not working properly.

Hong Kong leader John Lee and other officials and civil servants, all dressed in black, held a three-minute moment of silence early Saturday morning outside central government buildings, where flags were lowered to half-staff.

Condolence books have been set up at 18 locations around the former British colony for the public to express their condolences.

Britain’s King Charles said in a statement about the “horrible tragedy” that his “heart goes out to everyone who has lost a loved one, and to those who are currently living with shock and anxiety.”

At the Wangfu courthouse, officers from the Disaster Victim Identification Unit wearing white overalls, helmets and oxygen masks entered one of the charred buildings and continued searching for bodies.

They climbed over piles of bamboo scaffolding that had fallen during the disaster and around large puddles that formed after firefighters sprayed water on the building for several days to cool down temperatures inside.

Families and mourners gathered to lay flowers, but some faced the grueling task of viewing photos of the dead taken by rescue workers. Officials said Friday that only 39 of the 128 dead had been identified.

Hong Kong’s Lee said the government would set up a HK$300 million ($40 million) fund to help residents, with some of China’s biggest listed companies pledging donations.

Hundreds of volunteers also mobilized to help the victims, sorting and distributing items from diapers to hot food.

They assembled teams to collect, transport and distribute supplies around the clock, and set up a vast support camp for evacuated residents next to a shopping mall across the street from the complex.

Domestic workers from Indonesia and the Philippines were also involved in the tragedy. There are about 368,000 such workers in Hong Kong, most of them women from low-income countries in Asia, who often live in close quarters with their employers.

Indonesia announced that six of its citizens were killed in the incident. The Philippines announced that one of its nationals was seriously injured and another is missing, as well as 28 people believed to be residents of the area.

The fire is Hong Kong’s deadliest since 1948, when a warehouse fire killed 176 people, and has drawn comparisons to London’s Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people in 2017.

The city’s Ministry of Labor told Reuters that residents of Wang Fu Court were told by authorities last year that the “fire risk is relatively low” after they repeatedly complained about the fire risk from ongoing renovations.

Residents raised concerns in September 2024, including about the possibility that the protective green mesh used by contractors to cover the bamboo scaffolding was flammable, a department spokesperson said.

Hong Kong’s anti-graft group announced on Friday that it had arrested eight people, including engineering consultants, scaffolding subcontractors and intermediaries.

Earlier, police arrested two directors and a technical consultant of Prestige Construction, a company identified by the government as having been maintaining Wang Fu Court for more than a year, on suspicion of manslaughter for using dangerous materials such as flammable foam board to block the windows.

Prestige did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Public anger over the fires has so far been subdued, in contrast to massive pro-democracy protests in 2019 that prompted the Chinese government to tighten its grip on the city.

But some disgruntled volunteers handed out leaflets near the housing complex on Friday, demanding proper resettlement of affected residents, an overhaul of government oversight of construction projects, and an independent investigation into the fires.

As with other major fire disasters like Grenfell, analysts say pressure for answers could spread quickly beyond construction companies to government regulators.

The Hong Kong government traditionally conducts public investigations into major tragedies, many of which are led by independent judges.