With elections looming, the fire undercuts the government’s insistence it can cater to people’s needs without giving them a greater say in who rules the city.The fire that blazed through a cramped Hong Kong apartment complex and killed at least 128 people this week has become a major test for the city’s Beijing-backed leaders, who have tried to win back public trust after mass protests by promising better lives for everyday Hong Kongers.
Hong Kong authorities have said that the flames spread unusually quickly across the eight towers of government-subsidized housing. Dozens of Wang Fuk Court’s 4,600 residents were trapped inside the 31-story buildings as the inferno burned for 43 hours before being largely doused by 10:18 a.m. local time Friday.
Most people who died did so on the scene, Chris Tang, the city’s secretary for security, said in a news conference Friday afternoon. There were 89 unidentified bodies and around 110 other people who were unaccounted for, he added.
As rescue efforts enter their third day, public outcry has grown over perceived failures of oversight and emergency response that allowed so many to die. That anger may undermine efforts by the government to prove it can be responsive to people’s needs without giving locals a greater say in who rules Hong Kong.
“What makes it such a tragedy is that this disaster could have been mitigated or even prevented,” said Lokman Tsui, a research fellow at the University of Toronto who is writing a book about autocratic rule in Hong Kong, his hometown.
Residents told local media that the alarms in their building did not go off. Others accused the renovation contractor of ignoring complaints about fire hazards and posted photos of cigarette butts from workers who allegedly were smoking on-site.
Elderly tenants — nearly 40 percent of residents in the complex were 65 or older, a 2021 census found — may have been unable to escape thanks to the delayed warning, their neighbors said.
“It should be a wake-up call,” Tsui said. “Hong Kong is starting to show signs of failed governance.”
In October, the Hong Kong Labor Department responded to a concerned resident with the assessment that the risk of safety nets around the scaffolding catching fire was “relatively low,” according to text of the exchange posted on Facebook.
Residents had “raised alarm bells” with multiple government departments in early 2024 about the building, and the departments “all said things were fine,” said Michael Mo, a former Hong Kong district councillor who is now a doctoral candidate at Newcastle University in Britain. “It’s typical, careless bureaucracy,” he said.
More:
https://archive.ph/GWaw5#selection-437.0-525.325
