HONG KONG — The death toll from a massive fire that ripped through multiple high-rise residential blocks in Hong Kong’s northern Tai Po district has risen to 36, the city’s leader John Lee said early on Thursday.
Some 279 others are missing after a ferocious blaze ravaged a housing estate in Hong Kong’s Tai Po neighborhood, as scorching flames ripped through bamboo scaffolding on seven residential blocks.
Another 29 people have been hospitalized, with seven in a critical condition, Chief Executive John Lee revealed in an early Thursday morning press conference at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin.
Earlier, President Xi Jinping expressed his condolences in a late-evening statement and called for “all-out efforts” to minimise casualties and losses, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
The fire was first reported at 2.51 p.m. on Wednesday and soon, huge plumes of dark smoke billowed high into the sky at the scene at Wang Fuk Court, with the flames quickly spreading to seven out of eight blocks in the estate.
Police said that they had received multiple reports of people trapped in a building where the blaze started, with a man and a woman reportedly unconscious and suffering from burns.
The blaze was initially classified as a No 1 alarm fire but was quickly raised to No 4 by 3.34pm and then to the top-level No 5 at 6.22 p.m. In Hong Kong, fires are rated on a scale of one to five, with higher numbers indicating greater severity.
Footage from the scene shows bamboo scaffolding outside several flats of the building engulfed in flames, with burning sections of green scaffolding mesh falling to the ground.
The origin of the blaze was unclear, but there was no hiding the ease with which the fire rapidly spread across the green netting and sent bamboo lattices crashing to the ground in flames.
For decades in the skyscraper-strewn former British colony, bamboo has been the material of choice for scaffolding — cheap, abundant and flexible — bound together with nylon cords.
The craft originated on mainland China where bamboo, viewed as symbolising grace and moral fortitude, has since ancient times been a cornerstone of architecture, even reputedly used for scaffolding and tools in the building of the Great Wall.
Now, though, it has largely been phased out there for sturdier metal scaffolding and clamps. But Hong Kong, despite its modernity, still has around 2,500 registered bamboo scaffolding masters plying their trade, according to official figures.
Wang Fuk Court is one of many high-rise housing complexes in Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
Tai Po, located near the border with mainland China, is an established suburban district with some 300,000 residents.
Occupied since 1983, the complex is under the government’s subsidised home ownership scheme, according to property agency websites.
According to online posts, it has been undergoing renovations for a year at a cost of HK$330 million ($42.43 million), with each unit paying between HK$160,000 and HK$180,000.
Owning a home is a distant dream for many in Hong Kong, one of the world’s most expensive housing markets and where residential rents are hovering around record highs.
