- 2 days ago
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00And it brings this issue, of course, for decades about bamboo scaffolding, right?
00:03It's been one of Hong Kong's most iconic sites and a symbol of tradition and ingenuity
00:08rising alongside the city's steel and glass towers.
00:12But after the deadly fire in Tai Po, questions are now mounting
00:15over whether this heritage practice has become a hazard.
00:19Joining us now for more is our panel of guests.
00:21Huang Xinyan is an associate professor in the Department of Building, Environment and Energy Engineering
00:26at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
00:28Also with us from Brisbane is Anwar Arabi, lecturer in the School of Civil Engineering
00:33at the University of Queensland.
00:36Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us.
00:38I know you guys have worked together before.
00:40Anwar, I know you also once lived in Hong Kong.
00:43So this issue is very near and dear to all of our hearts here right now.
00:47So thank you so much for coming on to talk about this very issue.
00:51Xinyan, I'll start with you.
00:52From your perspective, why do you think this fire spread so rapidly?
00:58I think there are basically two reasons.
01:01First is use of the combustible material, including the bamboo scaffolding, as well as the plastic
01:08nettings and also other construction, flammable construction materials outside of the building,
01:15our exterior doors that definitely provide a vertical channel to for fire to spread up very quickly.
01:25And I think the second reason is if you look at these buildings, there are some channels between apartments.
01:33These channels are used for additional lighting and wind ventilation.
01:37But once you have a fire, they create a chimney effect that can bring the hot gas, the hot flame
01:45from the bottom to the top very quickly.
01:49So both the combustible material plus the chimney effect in these channels contribute to the rapid fire spread.
01:59Anwar, it seems like everyone's been pointing at this whole bamboo scaffolding issue.
02:04Can we blame just bamboo scaffolding for this rapid spread of this fire?
02:09Or as Xinyan mentioned, right, was it more about the scaffolding materials, right?
02:13There was talk about foam that was applied in some of the windows, that mesh netting as well
02:19that may have been, you know, did not meet these fire safety standards.
02:27Thank you, Yvonne.
02:28So it is a multifaceted problem.
02:30I do not think there is going to be a simple answer for such a complex question, unfortunately.
02:36So I completely agree with Xinyan that the combustible materials on the scaffolding likely played a very important role.
02:48The channels that he talked about is a new hypothesis that is becoming now more and more popular.
02:55All of these are going to be investigated very thoroughly, I'm sure, going forward.
03:00It is going to be impossible to right now say with certainty which one it is.
03:07We might say one or the other now, and we might be wrong, or we might be right,
03:13but we need time for us to evaluate the evidence or for the investigators to evaluate the evidence
03:18and actually recreate what they believe happened or what is scientifically shown that could happen
03:26to have led to this fire.
03:30Xinyan, a lot of people also question, right, that, you know, Hong Kong is a financial hub.
03:35It's a very developed city.
03:36Why do you think it's been so akin to using this sort of bamboo scaffolding to build homes as well?
03:44Why hasn't it been phased out sooner?
03:48I think the people in Hong Kong really respect the tradition,
03:53and the people here have been using bamboo for hundreds of years.
03:57It's part of their heritage.
04:00So, and another reason, I think, is people here are lucky.
04:06There are multiple bamboo scaffolding fires every year,
04:09but it does not cause any deaths so far until this big fire.
04:16So I just feel people are lucky here, but the luck will not continue.
04:23Eventually, there will be a big fire that cause a lot of damage, like this time.
04:29And Anwar, some experts have sort of brought up this disaster in Hong Kong and see similarities to what happened in the Grenfell Tower in London.
04:44What similarities do you see with that?
04:46And did it, you know, the conditions that were there, you know, how challenging was it for firefighters to really kind of bring in their equipment and really try to tackle this fire?
04:56So it is very similar to Grenfell in the sense that it is the vertical flame spread that was perhaps the main reason that the fire safety strategy failed,
05:11although that's not the only reason.
05:13So when we design a building, we try to limit fire to a compartment, to its source of origin, so that it doesn't develop into something that's uncontrollable.
05:26When the fire is at the scale of a building, it's nearly impossible for firefighters to extinguish it.
05:36That's why we see until now, there's probably fire still burning.
05:40There is smoldering happening in some of these compartments, particularly on the top floors.
05:45So in the sense that it is the vertical spread that made firefighting quite difficult or rather impossible is the main point here.
05:57Now, the other point is going to be about where is the failure?
06:02So the Grenfell inquiry has made about 40, over 40, 46, I think, recommendations for what needs to happen moving forward.
06:14And I think there is going to be a lot of change that's going to occur because of this.
06:20Unfortunately, in engineering, there is a tendency to design by tragedy.
06:29And that's been the case now, and that's been the case after Grenfell.
06:34And it's in a way similar to what Shinian put it.
06:37Sometimes we have a fire, the fire is controlled, and then people assume that that's it.
06:43That's, you know, the fire wasn't bad.
06:46Many fires could have turned into a tragedy.
06:49They just didn't.
06:51So there is a bit of a survival bias in a way.
06:55So we assume that things are safe until they're proven not.
06:59And that's the problem.
07:01It's the exceptions that kind of show us the failures of our systems that we have in place.
07:07And this is not a Hong Kong problem.
07:09This is a worldwide problem.
07:12These systems are so complex.
07:13These buildings are so complex.
07:15There are so many factors that you need to consider.
07:18As Shinian put it earlier, there is the light and ventilation.
07:21These are crucial, very, very important for day-to-day life of residents.
07:26But they might have contributed to the flame spread in this case.
07:29And Shinian, as Amor mentioned, it was the vertical spread.
07:37I'm just wondering in terms of, you know, I was looking at some of the video of just how high some of these firefighters and their ladders were.
07:45I think they were only kind of close to maybe halfway up some of those buildings here.
07:50The challenge of bringing water so high up to skyscrapers that we see here in Hong Kong, is that going to be a big issue as well?
08:00No, I think it's a global challenge.
08:02There is no, basically no good technique to bring the water to these high-rise buildings, especially for those above 100 meters.
08:12It's a global challenge.
08:14I think it's limited by our modern technology.
08:17It's simply hard.
08:20Some people say maybe there are some special kind of fire engine that can bring water above 100 meters.
08:28But these engines are super large.
08:31And it takes a long time for these engines to deploy, maybe 30 to 40 minutes.
08:37But when these engines deploy, after that, it's already too late.
08:42So I think it's limited by our current technology.
08:46No country, no city in the world can handle these high-rise building fire.
08:54Yeah.
08:54Or maybe you can chime in on that.
08:56I mean, what role do you think technologies play in all this to ensure maybe safer home building and construction here right now?
09:03I mean, we were talking to Regina Ip and she mentioned, you know, Chinese officials have always questioned why Hong Kong doesn't use drones, for example, in helping in tackling flames, for example.
09:13I mean, what role does technology play, you think?
09:15So firefighting is one of the oldest professions that we have.
09:22And Hong Kong has a really strong cohort of firefighters as well that tackle urban fires every day.
09:30So they're probably amongst the most experienced in the whole world in tackling this kind of fire.
09:36Now, it's not enough to just be able to bring water into a building.
09:40Just because you have your water hose doesn't mean you can quell any fire.
09:45The height, of course, plays a role here.
09:48It's really difficult to get up high.
09:50And, of course, I don't think a drone can get any close to these fires when they're at that scale.
09:56I don't think that would be a viable option.
10:01I could be proven wrong, of course, but I don't think that's feasible.
10:06There is a role, of course, for continuing developing new technologies to try and tackle this as much as possible.
10:12But my belief is actually that it's the prevention of this kind of cases that's the most important,
10:19which is why the inquiry that's going to happen, because of this, is going to be crucial.
10:24This is such an incredible price to pay and one that no city or we shouldn't have to pay as a society or as a community.
10:32But it is a price that has been paid now for moving forward and trying to establish what's systemically wrong with the way we build buildings.
10:40Yeah.
10:42Anwar, you mentioned about, we talked already about sort of the engineering side of things and maybe the materials issue.
10:48To what extent do you think this was a result of a lack of accountability as well, a misconduct as well?
10:56I can't really speak for misconduct yet, at least, because we don't know the facts yet.
11:03But once we do know the facts, we'll be able to tell, for example, that was it actually improper material that's been used?
11:13Was there, for example, as I've read in some articles, styrofoam used in places where it shouldn't be?
11:18So things like styrofoam, for example, are, they have a rather high heat of combustion.
11:25They are not likely to pass any certification for application on a high rise building.
11:32So there's going to be a lot of things that are going to be, that need to be found out and investigated.
11:39And once those are found out, then it will be, it will be, it won't, it still won't be simple.
11:46It's, my former advisor, my former PhD advisor called it an unbroken chain.
11:51So there is many links in this chain that led to this failure.
11:56And I don't think it's going to be one or two or three people responsible.
11:59I think it's going to be many more, unfortunately.
12:02And before we go, I'm going to ask the same question for both of you, because we've already have seen some, at least, discussions or, you know, legislation around, you know, new public buildings need to be using around 50 percent of metal scaffolding, for example.
12:19In light of what's happened, what do you think is going to be the biggest thing that needs to come out of it, whether it's policy, whether it's building reforms to avoid and prevent another disaster like this to happen again?
12:30Xinyin, I'll start with you.
12:33I think from this morning, several government officers in Hong Kong has already announced that the bamboo sky folding will be facing out to be replaced by the metal ones.
12:45I think this is really a good start.
12:47But this is not something we can do just overnight.
12:51This is a good start.
12:52And I think when the investigation continues, we will see more issues.
12:58But I think we can come up with an engineering solution or policy solutions eventually to take care of these issues to prevent future disasters.
13:12But it takes time.
13:14Omar, I'll give you the final word.
13:17Thank you, Yvonne.
13:19So, this is a multi-responsibility thing, right?
13:24So, it is not just policy that's going to be able to fix this alone, unfortunately.
13:30Who is responsible for the fire safety of buildings?
13:34It starts maybe at the very top with the government, but then it goes down the chain.
13:40It ends up even with the installers and the manufacturers of the products and what the testing and certification of these products mean.
13:47Now, what connects all of these together, I think, is education on fire safety engineering and how a fire safety strategy is developed and how these really complex systems, how the components of these complex systems interact together.
14:03Because once that knowledge is available and once that training is provided and everyone knows what they're exactly going to be responsible for, then things will be able to improve and move forward.
14:15Thank you very much.
Be the first to comment