Day 15 Tai Po fire hearing: worker says water hose ran dry in 30 secs
發佈日期: 2026-04-17 21:35
TVB News
Day 14 of the hearing of the independent commission of inquiry, looking into the Wang Fuk Court fire which claimed 168 lives.
Taking centre stage today were a former chairman of the owners' corporation's management committee and a construction worker who stationed near the fire's point of origin.
The hearing continued on Friday at Central's City Gallery.
Testifying was construction worker Chung Yun-sun, who was responsible for laying tesserae and was working on scaffolding at Wang Cheong House the day the deadly blaze broke out.
He says the process posed a low risk of damaging windows. He said styrofoam boards used to seal windows mainly aimed to prevent debris and mess.
He says the flame first erupted on scaffolding along the lower exterior wall of Wang Cheong House.
At the time, he was on the fourth floor and tried to locate a water hose, believing the water source was on the rooftop but unsure how to connect it.
He managed to use a hose briefly to douse the blaze, but water stopped flowing after 20 to 30 seconds.
Also taking the stand was Tony Tsui who was the owners' corporation's management committee chairman at the time of the fire.
Tsui testified that residents received letters in early June 2024, requesting contributions for major maintenance works.
He described the arrangement as rushed, with an overly short repayment period.
After assuming the chairmanship, Tsui said he handled proxy votes in the same way as the previous management committee, checking only for errors in completion.
Property management staff, he said, were responsible for verification and would place acknowledgment slips into residents' mailboxes.
He said there had been reports of large numbers of proxy votes at meetings or cases where residents denied having granted authorisation, but such claims were difficult to verify.
Tsui also said he had proposed carrying out the maintenance works in phases, but the contractor Prestige opposed the idea, citing prior approval from the previous committee.
Tsui also said he heard some residents alleged that Tai Po district councillor Peggy Wong had told residents not to overturn the previous owners' corporation while they were filling out maintenance subsidy forms.
The commission's lead counsel Victor Dawes cited a written submission from Peggy Wong.
Wong denied offering any material incentives in exchange for proxy votes.
She said in September 2024, she contacted around 20 households in Wang Fuk Court, some of whom did not support removing the previous management committee and voluntarily provided proxy votes.
Tony Tsui adds they were unaware the scaffolding netting materials had been mixed with substandard ones, describing the situation as regrettable. They also note that the existing monitoring mechanism had clearly failed to address such issues.
Tsui said he received repeated complaints about workers' smoking habits and attempted to address the situation through contractor Prestige, but efforts to stop that were ignored.
