Death toll rises to 128 in Hong Kong residential fire; 8 more arrested over towers’ renovation

By DAVID RISING and CHAN HO-HIM Associated Press HONG KONG AP Hong Kong firefighters unveiled dozens more bodies Friday in an intensive apartment-by-apartment search of a high-rise complex where a massive fire engulfed seven buildings and leadership arrested another people involved in the towers renovation The death toll in one of the city s deadliest blazes rose to and a multitude of remain unaccounted for Burned buildings are seen at the scene of the fire that started Wednesday at Wang Fuk Court a residential estate in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong s New Territories Friday Nov AP Photo Chan Long Hei First responders determined that specific fire alarms in the complex which housed numerous older people did not sound when tested revealed Andy Yeung the director of Hong Kong Fire Services though he did not say how several were not working or if others were The blaze jumped rapidly from one building to the next as bamboo scaffolding covered in netting and foam panels apparently installed by a construction company caught fire Officers on Friday arrested seven men and one woman ranging in age from to including scaffolding subcontractors directors of an engineering consultant company and project managers supervising the renovation the Independent Commission Against Corruption announced in a announcement On Friday crews prioritized apartments from which they had received urgency calls during the blaze but were unable to reach in the hours that the fire burned out of control Derek Armstrong Chan a deputy director of Hong Kong Fire Services informed reporters It took firefighters a few hours to bring the fire under control and it was not fully extinguished until Friday morning Even two days after the fire began smoke continued to drift out of the charred skeletons of the buildings from the occasional flare-up Related Articles In contemporary times in History November Boston nightclub fire kills people At present in History November Harvey Milk and George Moscone fatally shot Russia s frozen assets at center of negotiations over Ukraine peace deal Pushing an end to the Russia-Ukraine war Trump looks to his Gaza ceasefire playbook Indonesia investigates radioactive contamination in particular exports to US and Europe Selected people remain unaccounted for Secretary for Guard Chris Tang advised reporters That includes bodies that have not yet been identified Yet more bodies might be recovered bureaucrats revealed though crews have finished a search for anyone living trapped inside More than firefighters and medicinal personnel were involved in the operation and firefighters were among the people injured Yeung declared One firefighter was also killed he had disclosed previously Katy Lo a resident of Wang Fuk Court was not home when the fire started Wednesday She rushed back roughly an hour later to see that the blaze had spread to her building That s my home I still can t really believe what happened Lo announced on Friday as she registered for regime assistance for affected households This all still feels like a bad dream The apartment complex of eight -story buildings in Tai Po district a suburb near Hong Kong s demarcation with mainland China was built in the s and had been undergoing a major renovation It had almost apartments and particular residents Three men the directors and an engineering consultant of a construction company were arrested Thursday on suspicion of manslaughter and police noted company leaders were suspected of gross negligence Police have not identified the company where the subjects worked but documents posted to the homeowners association s website exhibited that the Prestige Construction Engineering Company was in charge of renovations Police have seized boxes of documents from the company where phones rang unanswered Thursday In addition to the new arrests Friday the anti-corruption agency also searched the persons of interest offices and seized relevant documents and bank records Bureaucrats suspected specific materials on the exterior walls of the high-rise buildings did not meet fire resistance standards allowing the unusually fast spread of the fire Police revealed they discovered highly flammable plastic foam panels attached to the windows on each floor of the one unaffected tower The panels were assumed to have been installed by the construction company but the purpose was not clear Preliminary investigations manifested the fire started on a lower-level scaffolding net of one of the buildings and then spread rapidly as the foam panels caught fire revealed Tang the secretary for precaution The blaze ignited the foam panels causing the glass to shatter and leading to a swift intensification of the fire and its spread into the interior spaces Tang disclosed Personnel planned immediate inspections of housing complexes undergoing major renovations to ensure scaffolding and construction materials meet safety standards The fire was the deadliest in Hong Kong in decades A fire in a commercial building in Kowloon killed people A warehouse fire in killed people according to the South China Morning Post Researcher Shihuan Chen in Beijing contributed to this review