Hong Kong High Rise Blaze Kills 159, Six Arrested Over Alarms

The toll from the high rise apartment fire in Tai Po climbed to 159 on Wednesday, as police arrested six people they say were involved in deactivating some fire alarms during maintenance at the Wang Fuk Court housing complex. The blaze, which began a week earlier and burned for more than 40 hours, ravaged seven of the eight towers at the site and left about 30 people still reported missing.

Police said the youngest victim was a 1 year old and the oldest was 97. Nineteen of the bodies among the 159 remained unidentified. Authorities said ten migrant workers who served as domestic helpers, nine from Indonesia and one from the Philippines, were among the dead, along with one firefighter who responded to the blaze.

Police commissioner Joe Chow told reporters, “We have not finished our work yet.” He said officers had completed a search for bodies inside all seven damaged towers but continued to probe piles of fallen bamboo scaffolding and other debris for possible remains. Investigators said they had found suspected human bones in different apartments and planned DNA testing to establish identities.

The arrests announced on Wednesday follow earlier detentions. On Tuesday the city anti corruption body and police said they had arrested 15 people, including directors at construction firms, amid a widening investigation into corruption and negligence connected to the renovation project at Wang Fuk Court. Police then said six additional men from a fire service installation contractor were taken into custody on suspicion of deactivating alarms and suspected false statements to the fire services department.

Residents had reported that some alarms failed to sound as the blaze spread. Officials pointed to substandard plastic nylon netting wrapped around bamboo scaffolding and foam boards installed on windows as factors that allowed flames to jump rapidly between buildings and consume seven towers. The initial cause of the fire remained under investigation.

In a dramatic response, government officials ordered the removal of external scaffolding nets from up to hundreds of buildings undergoing major renovation across the city. The materials will be tested before they can be reinstalled. The action was prompted by early findings at two housing complexes where fire safety inspection reports for scaffolding nets were suspected to have been falsified, Hong Kong Secretary for Security Chris Tang said. Police are investigating companies believed to have provided the test reports, including the Binzhou Inspection and Testing Center in China.

The disaster has focused attention on Hong Kong’s complex construction practices, the widespread use of bamboo scaffolding and the precarious conditions faced by low income residents and migrant workers. Officials face not only the immediate task of identifying victims and accounting for the missing but also political and legal pressure to overhaul inspection regimes and to hold accountable any firms or individuals found responsible for negligence or corruption.