Hong Kong authorities said on Thursday, November 27, that the death toll from a fire that destroyed an apartment building now stands at 65. According to a spokesman for the territorial government, 70 people were also injured, including ten firefighters.
The fire broke out shortly before 3 p.m. on Wednesday. (8 a.m. in Paris) in a building complex of eight towers of about thirty floors, located in the Tai Po district, in the north of the city. More than twenty-four hours after the start of the fire, the fire was extinguished in four of the seven towers affected by the flames and under control in three others, fire officials announced to the press on Thursday. By late afternoon, firefighters were still dousing the charred and smoking towers with water, which was still burning in places.
Authorities said the fire quickly spread to seven of the eight towers of the 1983 complex, which includes nearly 2,000 homes. It was renovated. Alert level 5, the highest, was activated and firefighters tried to control the fire throughout the night. About 900 residents were evacuated to temporary centers and dozens of others were hospitalized, some in critical condition.
Fire red alarm
The causes of the fire have not yet been precisely determined. However, police arrested three executives from the company responsible for the renovation work, accused of negligence after flammable material was found abandoned. They will probably be charged with manslaughter.
The facades of the towers were covered with bamboo scaffolding – as is traditional in Hong Kong – and wrapped in nets and plastic sheeting. Police suspect that several of these materials did not meet fire safety standards and an anti-corruption investigation has been launched.
As for the weather, winds of about 14 km per hour fanned the fire and facilitated its spread from one building to another. Hong Kong has been on red alert since Monday, the highest level due to the wind and a relative humidity of 16%, the lowest level since measurements began in 1984.
Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China with a population of 7.5 million, is one of the most densely populated places in the world. This financial center, where space is limited and real estate prices are among the highest in the world, is known for its skyscrapers rising around the bay. The past decades have been characterized by the construction of an abundance of residential towers that can exceed 50 floors.
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