At least 55 people have been killed, and police have made several arrests, after a huge fire engulfed a high-rise residential complex in Hong Kong.
Authorities said nearly 300 people are also missing following the blaze at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po – a suburban district with around 300,000 residents, near the border with mainland China.
A further 45 people are in hospital in a critical condition, with around 900 people also in shelters as a result of the blaze.
Police have alleged its cause could have been a “grossly negligent” construction firm using unsafe materials.
Three people – two directors and an engineering consultant – have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.
“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 police superintendent Eileen Chung. Police have not named the company.
The complex, built in the 1980s, had been under renovation for a year.
One firefighter was among those killed tackling the blaze, which broke out at 2.51pm local time on Wednesday.
Fire crews said they had doused the flames in all seven of the affected blocks by Thursday morning, which had been undergoing maintenance.
Records show the Wang Fuk Court site consists of eight blocks, with almost 2,000 flats housing around 4,800 residents, including many elderly people.
Families have been identifying the bodies of relatives while others have been visiting shelters in the area, searching for missing loved ones.
Hong Kong leader John Lee said on Thursday the government will set up a HK$300m (£29m) fund to help residents.
The cause of the fire is being investigated, but it appears to have started in bamboo scaffolding and construction mesh sheets and then spread across seven of the complex’s eight buildings – likely aided by windy conditions.
Bamboo scaffolding is commonly used in Hong Kong, but is in the process of being phased out because of safety concerns.
Hong Kong’s Association for the Rights of Industrial Accident Victims said there have been at least three fires involving bamboo scaffolding this year.
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China’s state broadcaster CCTV said President Xi Jinping has urged an “all-out effort” to extinguish the fire and minimise casualties and losses.
Both the US and British Consulate Generals for Hong Kong have sent condolences to those affected, as has Taiwan’s president.
The number of dead is already the highest in a Hong Kong fire since 1948, when 176 people were killed in a warehouse blaze.
The fire has prompted comparisons to the Grenfell Tower blaze which killed 72 people in 2017, blamed on flammable cladding, as well as failings by the government and the construction industry.
“Our hearts go out to all those affected by the horrific fire in Hong Kong,” the Grenfell United survivors’ group said on
social media.
“To the families, friends and communities, we stand with you. You are not alone.”
