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02-12-2025
HONG KONG/ BEIJING/SINGAPORE: Residents of the housing complex that was engulfed in Hong Kong’s deadliest blaze in seven decades were told by authorities last year that they faced “relatively low fire risks” after complaining repeatedly about fire hazards posed by ongoing renovation works, the city’s Labour Department told media.
People living at Wang Fuk Court in northern Hong Kong had raised concerns over maintenance activity in September 2024, including about the potential flammability of the protective green mesh contractors had used to cover the bamboo scaffolding raised around the buildings, a department spokesperson said in an email.
The department subsequently reviewed safety certification for the mesh, which was used as a net for falling debris, and told residents the material’s “flame-retardant performance” met standards, said the agency, which helps enforce construction standards set by the Building Department.
Hong Kong police said on Thursday, however, that the exterior walls of the complex’s buildings “had protective nets, membranes, waterproof tarpaulins, and plastic sheets suspected of not meeting fire safety standards.” Three people associated with renovation contractor Prestige Construction have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.
The exact cause of Wednesday’s inferno, which has claimed at least 128 lives, has not been determined. What is clear, however, is that the fire spread rapidly through the exterior scaffolding system, said Jiang Liming, a fire-safety expert at Hong Kong Polytechnic University who reviewed video footage of the blaze.
Prestige, which secured a HK$330 million ($42.4 million) renovation contract for the complex in January 2024, did not respond to repeated calls. The three arrested people, who authorities have not named, could not be reached. Metal shutters were pulled down over the entrance of Prestige’s office when a reporter visited on Friday morning.
Asked about the Labour Department’s review of the mesh’s safety certification, Hong Kong police referred to a Thursday statement in which it said it would “gather evidence and conduct a thorough investigation to ascertain the cause of the fire” once the blaze was fully extinguished.
The Labour Department told Reuters that when it told residents they faced low fire risks as long as processes like welding were avoided, that did not mean that potential hazards were ignored. It also said it had reminded the contractor to implement fire-prevention measures.
The agency added that it had carried out 16 safety inspections at Wang Fuk Court between July 2024 and November 2025. The department issued six improvement notices to the contractor over its work at the complex and initiated three prosecutions, it said, without providing further specifics.
Media could not determine the outcome of those proceedings or the firm’s response. Firefighters were first alerted to fire at one of Wang Fuk Court’s towers at 2:51 p.m. Within the five minutes it took them to reach the site, the blaze had scattered across the scaffolding, entered the interior of the building and spread to other towers in the complex, according to a fire department statement.
In about four hours, seven of the complex’s eight 32-story towers were engulfed in flames. Thick smoke made it hard for first responders to reach higher floors.
Hundreds of the 4,600 people living in the complex were placed in temporary shelter. About 200 were missing as of Friday.
Jiang, an assistant professor at Polytechnic University’s department of building environment and energy engineering, compared the blaze to London’s 2017 Grenfell public-housing fire, in which 72 people died. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
