A huge fire still burning in a Hong Kong apartment complex that has killed at least 44 people and left nearly 300 missing may have been caused by a “grossly negligent” construction firm using unsafe materials, according to police.
Almost a full day after the fire began, firefighters were struggling to reach residents potentially trapped on the upper floors of the Wang Fuk Court housing complex due to intense heat and thick smoke from the blaze that erupted on Wednesday afternoon.
Police said in addition to the buildings being covered with protective mesh sheets and plastic that may not meet fire standards, they discovered some windows on one unaffected building were sealed with a foam mate1rial, installed by a construction company carrying out year-long maintenance work.
“We have reason to believe that the company’s responsible parties were grossly negligent, which led to this accident and caused the fire to spread uncontrollably, resulting in major casualties,” said Eileen Chung, a Hong Kong police superintendent.
Three men from the construction company, two directors and one engineering consultant, had been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter over the fire, she added.
Police officers searched the housing estate’s building maintenance company on Thursday morning, seizing documents that mention of Wang Fuk Court, local media reported. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The tightly packed complex in the northern Tai Po district has 2,000 apartments in eight blocks that are home to more than 4,600 people in a city struggling with chronic shortages of affordable housing.
By Thursday morning, authorities said they had brought the fire in four of seven blocks under control, with operations continuing in three blocks.
Video from the scene some 22 hours after the blaze started showed flames still leaping from at least two of the 32-storey towers sheathed in green construction mesh and bamboo scaffolding.
The bamboo scaffolding is a mainstay of traditional Chinese architecture but has been subject to a phase-out in Hong Kong since March for safety reasons.
A firefighter was among the 44 killed, with 45 people in hospital in critical condition, Hong Kong police told a press conference before dawn on Thursday.
The priority is to extinguish the fire and rescue the residents who are trapped,” Hong Kong leader John Lee told reporters. “The second is to support the injured. The third is to support and recover. Then, we’ll launch a thorough investigation.”
Some 279 people were uncontactable and 900 were in eight shelters, he added.
The death toll is now the highest in a Hong Kong fire since 1948, when 176 people were killed in a warehouse blaze.