Hong Kong fire: "Most fires start indoors"

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe interviewed Xinyan Huang, Associate Professor in the Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Transcript

00:00Hong Kong's insurance sector is expected to face massive claims after the deadly fire

00:05in several tower blocks this week that killed 128 people. Insurance claims could amount

00:10to $334 million. Hong Kong's insurance authorities already set up a special task force to make

00:17sure that fire claims are processed quickly. While the cause of the fire has not been officially

00:22confirmed, there are questions being asked about the traditional bamboo scaffolding that

00:26was being used for the renovation. Paul Barber spoke to Xin Yan Huang from Hong Kong's Polytechnic

00:31University and asked if it was feasible and cost effective to use steel rather than bamboo.

00:37I think this morning the Hong Kong official officially announced that they were facing out the bamboo

00:47scaffolding and replaced with the steel. But that takes some time to do that transition.

00:54Now Hong Kong certainly has struggles and issues in its property market. Do you think that the shift

01:01towards steel scaffolding in construction would deter more projects being built?

01:06I think that's for sure. First of all, we don't know whether this building will be continued to be used

01:13after the fire. We have to further evaluate their structure stability. But there definitely will be

01:19new buildings with the better regulation, with the higher standard to be built in Hong Kong.

01:26Some Chinese companies, including BYD and Geely and Alibaba have pledged tens of millions of dollars to

01:33help with the recovery effort really from this terrible tragedy. I mean, just how big a blow is it,

01:39do you think, for the construction industry in Hong Kong?

01:42In the short term, definitely, it will have a big hit. But definitely, if we can learn good lessons

01:49from this tragedy, we can further improve our building safety. So in the long run, I think

01:58these tragedies, they will benefit the future living condition.

02:04Now many people looking at these images from around the world will be quite surprised, maybe,

02:10just the sheer number of properties, the density and the height of these buildings, the numbers of

02:15people living in very close proximity. How much of an issue is this for Hong Kong, where affordable

02:20housing is certainly quite scarce?

02:22The fire safety of these high-density, high-rise residential buildings, they are safe. I have to say,

02:32without these bamboo sky folding, without this renovation process, it's pretty safe. Hong Kong has

02:38the world's most strict building fire regulation. It does not allow any combustible material

02:46outside the building wall. But the tricky thing is, the bamboo sky folding are not considered as a part

02:54of the building. So they don't have to satisfy the building fire regulation. So this creates a loophole

03:01to generate a potential fire risk to the building, because most of the fires start from indoor,

03:09start from a room. If that's the case, the building will be very safe, because fire will never spread

03:15to the entire building. But when the fire penetrated from outside to the indoor environment, that's a different story.

03:22Is this a different story?

03:33I'm sorry.

03:34I'm sorry.

03:36I'm sorry.

03:38I'm sorry.

03:40I really cravenidos here to the building fire.

03:42I'm sorry.

03:43I'm sorry.

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