In Hong Kong, firefighters on Friday continued to comb apartment after apartment in an apartment building in a last-ditch effort to find anyone alive after a massive fire engulfed seven of the complex's eight towers, killing at least 94 people in one of the city's deadliest fires, UNN reports with reference to AP.
Details
Firefighters prioritized apartments from which they received more than two dozen calls for help during the fire but were unable to reach them, Derek Armstrong Chan, deputy director of the Hong Kong Fire Services Department, told reporters early Friday.
"Our firefighting operation is almost complete," he said.
The fire started midday Wednesday in one of the eight towers of the Wang Fuk Court complex, quickly spreading from one to another as bamboo scaffolding covered with netting, which was in place during renovations, caught fire until it engulfed seven buildings.
It took more than 1,000 firefighters about 24 hours to bring the blaze under control, and even nearly two days later, smoke continued to billow from the charred skeletons of the buildings from occasional flare-ups.
The final search of the buildings was expected to be completed later on Friday, after which officials said they would officially conclude the rescue phase of their operation at the complex in the Tai Po district, a northern suburb near Hong Kong's border with mainland China.
It is unclear how many people may be inside the buildings, which had nearly 2,000 apartments and about 4,800 residents. Hong Kong leader John Lee said early Thursday that officials had been unable to contact 279 residents.
"We will make every effort to force our way into all apartments in the seven affected blocks to ensure there are no other possible victims," Chan said.
He said an updated figure on the number of missing people could not be calculated until the search and rescue operation was completed.
The apartments from which a total of 25 unanswered rescue calls were received, which are being prioritized, were mostly on the upper floors, where the fire was extinguished last, he said.
More than 70 people were injured in the fire, including 11 firefighters, and about 900 people were housed in temporary shelters.
According to Chan, most of the victims were in the first two buildings that caught fire.
The residential complex was home to many elderly people. It was built in the 1980s and was undergoing major renovations. Hong Kong's anti-corruption agency said Thursday it was investigating possible corruption related to the renovation project.
Three men, directors and a consulting engineer of a construction company, were detained on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter, and police said company executives were suspected of gross negligence.
Police did not identify the company where the suspects worked, but the Associated Press confirmed that Prestige Construction & Engineering Company was responsible for the renovations at the tower complex. Police seized boxes of documents from the company, whose phones were unanswered on Thursday.
Authorities suspected that some materials on the exterior walls of the high-rise buildings did not meet fire resistance standards, leading to the extremely rapid spread of the fire.
Police also said they found foam panels, which are highly flammable, attached to windows on each floor near the elevator lobby of the only undamaged tower. The panels are believed to have been installed by the construction company, but the purpose of their installation is unclear.
Authorities have scheduled immediate inspections of residential areas undergoing major renovations to ensure that scaffolding and building materials meet safety standards.
Addition
This fire was the deadliest in Hong Kong in decades. A 1996 fire in a commercial building in Kowloon killed 41 people.