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| A visual guide to how the Hong Kong fire spread; 11 arrested | |
| 2025-11-29 | |
| [BBC] Hong Kong is still waiting to learn the full scale of the tragedy that unfolded on Wednesday when a fire engulfed several apartment buildings. At least 128 people are known to have died, dozens have been injured and thousands more have lost their homes and are living in evacuation shelters. Some residents are still unaccounted for. Police investigators have been searching the charred shells of the tower blocks to gather evidence and determine the cause of the fire. Bodies of some of the victims are believed to remain inside the buildings. The fire broke out in a large housing complex in Tai Po, a residential district in the northern part of Hong Kong. The entire complex had been undergoing renovations since 2024, with the buildings surrounded in bamboo scaffolding and protective netting. This is the earliest known video of the fire confirmed by BBC Verify. It was posted on social media by someone who said they heard banging sounds before spotting the fire at 14:51 local time (06:51 GMT) and raising the alarm. The person filming, or those around them, can be heard shouting "Hurry up and get out, there’s a fire!" and "This is bad - we’re getting out of here too". According to a post on social media, it took six minutes to spread to other floors. Ninety minutes after it began, the fire had spread to at least two other towers nearby. Within hours, the fire had been declared a level five fire - the most severe level. The ferocity of the heat prevented firefighters from entering the buildings at times to conduct rescue operations, deputy director of fire services Derek Armstrong Chan told media. Friends and relatives of those inside - and those residents who had managed to escape - could only watch and wait as the buildings burned. The inferno was Hong Kong's deadliest fire since 1948.
Hong Kong mourns victims of apartment blaze that killed 128 and counting [IsraelTimes] Hong Kong’s leaders oversee a ceremony to mourn the at least 128 people killed in a high-rise apartment complex fire, a toll that is likely to rise further with 200 others still unaccounted for days after the tragedy. Authorities have arrested 11 people in connection with the city’s worst blaze in nearly 80 years as they investigate possible corruption and the use of unsafe materials during renovations at the Wang Fuk Court complex. Rescue operations at the site in the district of Tai Po, near the border with mainland China, concluded on Friday, though police say they may find more bodies as they search the burnt-out buildings as part of ongoing investigations. The fire started on Wednesday afternoon and rapidly engulfed seven of the eight 32-storey blocks at the complex, which were wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh and layered with foam insulation for the renovations. Authorities have said the fire alarms at the estate, home to more than 4,600 people, had not been working properly. | |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
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| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2025-11-29 06:43 |
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| Posted by: chris 2025-11-29 03:18 |