Residents Complained of Fire Hazards a Year Before Hong Kong Blaze

TaiwanPlus News

As authorities try to figure out what caused Hong Kong's deadliest fire in decades, city labor authorities have revealed that Wong Fuk Court residents complained about fire hazards in the leadup to the blaze.

Transcript

00:00Over a hundred people were killed when Hong Kong's deadliest fire in decades engulfed seven

00:06high-rise apartment buildings, leaving many others injured or missing. Authorities have

00:12arrested at least eight people in connection with the blaze. They're suspected of manslaughter for

00:17unsafe construction practices, which ultimately led to the fire. The building complex is Wong

00:23Fook Court, an affordable public housing project. It was undergoing massive renovations at the time

00:29of the fire, with each building covered in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh,

00:34materials that may have contributed to the fire's rapid spread.

00:38This one is largely due to the bamboo scaffold folding and other combustion materials during

00:46innovation. So it's kind of from initial fire to facade widespread fire and to multiple

00:53spots of the residential unit fire. So that is how the fire become so devastating.

01:02There might have been warning signs that this disaster was coming, signs that were ignored.

01:08According to Hong Kong's Labor Department, residents complained about fire hazards last September,

01:15over a year before the fire. Authorities responded saying that they faced, quote,

01:19relatively low fire risks. Following the complaints, the Labor Department reviewed the

01:25certification for the construction mesh and told residents that it met standards. While the mesh could

01:31have contributed to the fire's spread, poor construction practices may have been what started the inferno.

01:38One video shows a construction worker smoking within the green mesh. Other oversights likely added to the risk.

01:44Fires on scaffolding at construction sites are usually due to the accumulation of construction debris,

01:52like paper. In light of the Wong Fook Court fire, Hong Kong is reviewing its policies on bamboo

01:59scaffolding. Workers have been spotted taking down construction mesh around the city, a sign that Hong Kong

02:05is looking to revamp and reform in order to recover. John Su and Leslie Liao for Taiwan Plus.

02:14have been established in a project.

02:15We are not forwarding the testifying system of the

02:20alcohol storage systems into the area, which is currently un-affected and wasteful area.

02:25We're not going to launch the sites, but the site would be 유용-like.

02:27In the list of all sites, we are not to work through the city.

02:30We are not to be able to do this in the list of this list of sites of the storage systems that we racked up.

02:33We are a lot of the sites around the time. We are allowed to get tested,

02:36and we are available to the site for the site, and we are available to the site.

02:37We are now available to the site for this site, and we are available to post-S.

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