Tai Po fire still burning with at least 44 dead

已複製連結

A five-alarm fire at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po is still not extinguished. At least 40 people were pronounced dead at the scene, another 4 died after being sent to hospital. 

Authorities earlier said more than 270 people were unaccounted for, and many residents are searching everywhere for their loved ones. 

The Chief Executive has ordered the activation of the Emergency Incident Monitoring and Support Centre to fully focus on firefighting and rescue. 

President Xi Jinping expressed condolences for the victims of the fire and demanded that every effort be made to put it out. 

The Fire Services Department said that of the seven buildings that caught fire, flames in four have been brought under control, while the remaining three are still being fought. They estimate they will only be able to reach the rooftops around midday to dusk.

This deadly blaze burned through the night and has still not been extinguished.

After daybreak, flames could be seen coming from some units.

Firefighters continued dousing the building with water.

Firefighters kept spraying the exterior walls to bring down the temperature.

Some unit windows appear to have been sealed with what looks like Styrofoam. The Fire Services said that among the seven buildings that caught fire, four have their flames under control, while the other three are still being fought. They are conducting search and suppression from the bottom up and estimate they will only reach the rooftops around noon to evening.

Deputy Fire Services Director Derek Armstrong Chan said, “We are advancing upward from the lower floors. As for the search, in some buildings we’ve reached the 13th to the 23rd floors, and for firefighting operations, suppression has progressed to the 5th to the 18th floors.

But in some situations, for example when the rear stairwell is slightly less smoky, our Rapid Intervention Team will go up to conduct quick searches, going to units where we previously received calls for help to rescue trapped people. In one of the buildings, we brought two survivors down from the rooftop,” said Chan.

Firefighters have been racing against time to save residents.

Throughout the early hours, injured people were rescued and sent to hospital by ambulance.

Bodies of victims were also transported away by Food and Environmental Hygiene Department vehicles.

The fire broke out close to 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.

Some citizens lost contact with relatives and friends; they made homemade placards with family members’ names and searched for them around the fire scene.

“I hope someone can tell me they’ve seen him. I just want him to be safe.”

A resident living on a high floor of Wang Cheung House learned that his wife was trapped alone. He rushed back to Hong Kong from the Mainland and stayed in touch with her through a messaging app.

“At first I told her to leave. She tried to go out, but the stairwell was full of thick smoke—pitch black—she couldn’t get through, so she could only hide back inside the unit.”

By 6 a.m., Mr. Lee learned that his wife was conscious and had been rescued; she was taken to hospital for treatment.

The fire first started at Wang Cheong House, then spread to other buildings. Wang Fuk Court is a Home Ownership Scheme estate under the Housing Authority, which was first occupied in the early 1980s. In recent months it has been undergoing major renovation works, including exterior wall plaster spraying and pebble-dash surfacing, and was near completion.