Hong Kong
—
The bodies of some of those killed in last week’s devastating fire at a Hong Kong apartment complex may never be recovered, city officials said on Monday, as frantic search efforts continue at the scene.
Authorities said on Monday the death toll had risen to 151 and at least 30 people were missing after the city’s worst fire in decades destroyed seven high-rise towers at the Wangfu court complex. More than 4,000 people lived in the housing complex, which was being renovated, many of them elderly.
“We cannot rule out the possibility that all the missing people may not be rescued because some of the bodies are reduced to ashes,” said Chief Superintendent Karen Tsang, head of the Casualty Investigation Unit, as she fought back tears at a press conference on Monday afternoon.
The number of people arrested in the fire has risen to 14, with more arrests likely, authorities said, accusing the construction company of purchasing and using materials that were not fire-resistant.
Most of those arrested are consultants, contractors and subcontractors involved in construction work, and 13 of them are being investigated on suspicion of “manslaughter due to gross negligence,” officials said.
Since the fire was extinguished on Friday, an estimated 600 disaster victim identification experts have been slowly going door-to-door to clean up apartments.
“During the search, bodies were found in the building’s hallways, apartments, stairs and even on the roof,” said Superintendent Chen Ka-chun, who heads the police identification unit.
Images released by police showed investigators in boiler suits carefully examining the ashes of burned belongings inside the fire-ravaged unit. Police say the complex task is made even more difficult by dim lighting and narrow passageways blocked by falling objects.
Officers had to pass through a hallway blocked by burnt wood panels to reach the apartment, which had broken windows, blackened walls and peeling paint.
“There was no electricity or light, so the whole apartment was pitch black,” Chen said on Sunday.
By Monday night, searches had concluded in five of the towers, but authorities said some damaged apartments in the remaining two were structurally unsafe for searchers to enter.
“Everyone remembers that the Wang Ching Residence was one of the first to catch fire and one of the last to be extinguished,” regional commander Lam Manhan said, adding that “the environment is extremely dire.”
Those killed included many elderly residents, foreign domestic workers who lived with their employers (many of them elderly or families with children), construction workers, and firefighters who responded to the scene.
According to the embassy, nine of the domestic workers were Indonesian and one was Filipino.
substandard net
Authorities said Monday that substandard mesh netting that wrapped bamboo scaffolding around the complex contributed to the fire’s rapid spread.
Hong Kong Security Secretary Chris Tan said seven of the 20 samples taken from the complex after the fire failed fire safety tests.
Corruption investigations are currently underway against 12 of those arrested.
Wu Yingming, the city’s corruption commissioner, said the netting around the building was damaged in a typhoon in July and accused the group of purchasing non-conforming netting to replace it. “They applied it to the damaged areas,” Wu said, adding that authorities calculated they had purchased enough to wrap all eight towers of the complex.
Wu said the group reportedly bought more fire netting and wrapped it only around the first floor of the building, fearing that the netting would be inspected after another high-rise fire in Hong Kong in October.
“The suspects are very cunning,” said Chief Secretary Chan Kwok-ki. “For the sake of a small profit, they are taking the lives of many people.”
The city’s Building Department is currently collecting samples from 300 construction sites where similar nets are used.
Polystyrene boards used by contractors to block the complex’s windows were identified as another factor contributing to the speed of the inferno’s spread. Officials said they had identified three other construction sites in the city where the same technique was used and asked them to remove the boards.
On Sunday, hundreds of Hong Kongers came to the site of the fire to lay flowers, forming a line stretching more than a kilometer to the Tai Po district.
The mourners included family members, elderly people and foreign domestic helpers, many of whom left notes on pillars of pavilions in nearby parks.
One person wrote: “The truth will come out. God bless Hong Kong.”
Donations amounting to HK$900 million ($115 million) have poured in in recent days from businesses and the local community, with some sending food and supplies to a resource center set up by volunteers at the complex.
Volunteers helped distribute food and water at the scene.
Some aspects of the community response have drawn suspicion from authorities, who have warned of a resurgence of anti-government sentiment in Hong Kong, citing the pro-democracy protests that erupted in 2019.
Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous region of China, run by its own local government that responds to leadership in Beijing.
On Saturday, Beijing’s National Security Agency warned against new dissent and called on the city government to punish those who seek to use the fires as a pretext to “revolt against China and cause chaos in Hong Kong.”
National security police have since arrested three people, including one who was detained on sedition charges for allegedly distributing materials in support of an online petition calling for an independent investigation into the fire, a lawyer told CNN.
The petition, which has since been deleted, had gathered more than 10,000 signatures by Saturday afternoon, according to Reuters.
A pro-Beijing newspaper reported that a senior official from Hong Kong’s police force, which is responsible for national security, also visited the scene of the fire.
Authorities have asked volunteers to stay away from fires, announced they will centralize the distribution of supplies and require people to register via WhatsApp to donate.
