Authorities probe corruption and negligence in Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades

HONG KONG AP Hong Kong s deadliest fire in decades has raised questions about corruption and negligence in the renovations of the apartment complex where at least people died An intense fire broke out at Wang Fuk Court complex in Hong Kong s northern suburbs Wednesday afternoon with flames covering seven of the eight towers The complex was home to selected residents selected of whom had raised safety concerns about the renovations more than year before the fire Police on Wednesday arrested three men from a construction company on suspicion of manslaughter and gross negligence They were circulated on bail but then arrested by the Independent Commission Against Corruption the authority announced Saturday night pointing to their leadership role in the renovations ICAC had also previously arrested seven men and one woman associated with the project Police have not identified the company where the persons worked but documents posted to the homeowners association s website revealed that the Prestige Construction Engineering Company was in charge of renovations Police have seized boxes of documents from the company where phones rang unanswered Thursday Executives also declared they were exploring the materials used both the netting on the scaffolding and the foam panels covering windows and their role in the blaze Residents determined safety issues a year before fire For almost a year several residents at the Wang Fuk Court complex had been raising safety concerns to Hong Kong executives about the scaffolding materials being used in the renovation project according to documents reviewed by the AP specifically about the netting that covered the scaffolding Hong Kong s labor department in a report on Saturday verified it had received such complaints adding that leaders had carried out inspections of Wang Fuk Court s renovation project since July and had warned contractors multiple times in writing that they must ensure they met fire safety requirements The city even carried out an inspection as late as one week before the fire The labor department explained it had reviewed the product quality certificate of the netting and that it was in line with standards but that the safety netting had not been the previous target of inspections Preliminary investigations indicated the fire started on a lower-level scaffolding net of one of the buildings It then spread rapidly as the foam panels caught fire noted Chris Tang the city s secretary for guard Police also declared they had been looking at the highly flammable foam panels The blaze ignited the foam panels causing the glass to shatter and leading to a swift intensification of the fire and its spread into the interior spaces Tang revealed The labor department mentioned later on Saturday that three prosecutions were brought against the company over breaches of safety regulations for working at height in the construction and convictions in two of the cases resulted in fines of totaling Hong Kong dollars The company also was fined three times in for separate violations unrelated to the Tai Po project First responders also revealed that particular fire alarms in the complex which housed a large number of older people did not sound when tested revealed Andy Yeung the director of Hong Kong Fire Services He did not specify how countless were not working or if any of the others were Intense blaze took days to put out It took firefighters a day to bring the fire under control and it was not fully extinguished until Friday morning various hours after it started Crews prioritized apartments from which they had received crisis calls during the blaze but were unable to reach in the hours that the fire burned out of control Derek Armstrong Chan a deputy director of Hong Kong Fire Services communicated reporters Twelve firefighters were among the people injured in the blaze and one firefighter was killed Even two days after the fire began smoke continued to drift out of the charred skeletons of the buildings from the occasional flare-up More bodies may be unveiled While more bodies might be recovered government reported crews have finished their search for anyone living trapped inside Government stated Saturday they need to identify more bodies out of the recovered About people remain unaccounted for The dead included two Indonesian migrant workers the Indonesian foreign ministry reported Thursday About other displaced persons from the country who were working as domestic helpers in the apartment complex remain missing Indonesian Consul General Yul Edison reported Friday Near the site of the fire Sara Yu held the hand of her -year-old son Dominic as they each placed a single white rose into a growing cluster of the flowers in a small children s playground I brought the kids here because I want them to understand that living in this world is something to be cherished she disclosed holding back tears Outside a building close to the scene of the fire where family members came to identify loved ones from photographs people placed bouquets of white roses lilies and carnations More than innocent lives what did they do wrong questioned a sign placed among the flowers The city lowered flags to half staff in mourning and Chief Executive John Lee led a three-minute silence Saturday from the administration headquarters with functionaries all dressed in black The fire was the deadliest in Hong Kong in decades A fire in a commercial building in Kowloon killed people A warehouse fire in killed people according to the South China Morning Post Researcher Shihuan Chen in Beijing and writer David Rising in Hong Kong contributed to this summary Wu shared from Bangkok