Rescue operations inside the Hong Kong apartment complex that was engulfed by fire on Wednesday are “almost complete”, fire officials have said, as the death toll reached 94 early on Friday with scores more missing.
Firefighters were combing though through the high-rises on Friday, attempting to find anyone alive after the massive fire that spread to seven of eight towers, in one of the city’s deadliest ever blazes.
Throughout the morning more families arrived at the Kwong Fuk Estate community centre, adjacent to Wang Fuk Court, to identify the bodies being pulled from the gutted buildings. Few names of the dead have been released to the public yet.
Rescue crews were prioritising apartments from which they received more than two dozen calls for assistance during the fire but were unable to reach, Derek Armstrong Chan, a deputy director of Hong Kong Fire Services told reporters, adding that the operation was nearing completion.
“We’ll endeavour to effect forcible entry to all the units of the seven buildings, so as to ensure there are no other possible casualties,” Chan added.
The blaze which began on Wednesday afternoon, spread quickly through the Wang Fuk Court housing complex in the northern district of Tai Po. The eight-tower estate housing more than 4,600 people had been undergoing renovations and was wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh which is thought to have allowed the fire to spread.
By Friday morning the blazes had been mostly contained, although authorities said some apartments were still on fire, and they wanted to prevent them from spreading, and reigniting other parts of the building.
Most of the dead were found in two of the seven towers that caught fire, and most survivors were pulled from the others. The number of missing had not been updated since early Thursday when it was more than 250.
Indonesia’s consul-general, Yul Edison, arrived on Friday afternoon to help with identification of the deceased.
He told reporters at least one Indonesian national – many of whom are employed as domestic helpers in apartments like these – is among the dead so far. A spokeswoman for the Mission for Migrant Workers NGO says there are 11 Indonesian and 19 Filipino domestic helpers still missing, from 119 known to live in the building.
A crowd-sourced web app has collated reports from families about each building, identifying individual apartments in each tower, with available details of the residents.
“A 41-year-old man went missing at 16:45,” said one report from block F, where the fire began. “His last message was that he was trapped in stairwell 25-26.” Another report confirms the death of a 60-year-old man, 90-year-old woman, and a 40-year-old Indian national who lived with them as a domestic helper in the 11th floor apartment. Eight floors above them, four people were reported to have died in one apartment.
Police and corruption authorities are investigating the cause of the fire. Three people from a construction company involved in the years-long renovation of the complex were arrested.
Officials have focused on the bamboo scaffolding surrounding the building, as well as the green mesh that covered it, and the highly flammable styrofoam that authorities have since discovered was used in elevator window coverings on every floor.
It has prompted calls for stronger fire safety laws in the construction sector.
“There’s no law stipulating that flame-retardant materials must be used,” Lee Kwong-sing, chair of Hong Kong Institute of Safety Practitioner said, according to RTHK.
“It is merely stated in the codes of practice by the Labour Department, so many people may not follow the requirements as it is not illegal. But if you turn such codes into a mandatory requirement … then that’ll be another story altogether.”
