Authorities investigate corruption and negligence in Hong Kong fire that killed at least 128 people

from hong kong Deadliest fire in decades has raised questions about corruption and negligence in renovations to the apartment complex where at least 128 people died.

An intense fire broke out at the Wang Fuk Court complex in Hong Kong’s northern suburbs on Wednesday afternoon, with flames engulfing seven of the eight towers. The complex was home to about 4,800 residents, some of whom had raised safety concerns about the renovations more than a year before the fire.

Police on Wednesday arrested three men from a construction company on suspicion of manslaughter and gross negligence. They are now free on bail. Authorities then arrested seven men and one woman, including scaffolding subcontractors, directors of an engineering consultancy firm and project managers overseeing the renovation, in a corruption investigation.

Police have not identified the company where the suspects worked, but documents posted on the homeowners association website showed Prestige Construction & Engineering Company was in charge of the renovations. Police confiscated boxes of documents from the company, where phones rang unanswered Thursday.

Authorities also said they were investigating the materials used, both the scaffolding nets and the foam panels covering the windows, and their role in the fire.

Residents highlighted safety issues a year before fire

For nearly a year, some residents of the Wang Fuk Court complex had been raising safety concerns with Hong Kong authorities about scaffolding materials being used in the renovation project, according to documents reviewed by the AP, specifically about the nets covering the scaffolding.

Hong Kong’s labor department confirmed in a statement on Saturday that it had received such complaints, adding that officials had carried out 16 inspections of the Wang Fuk Court renovation project since July 2024 and had warned contractors several times in writing to ensure they met fire safety requirements. The city even conducted an inspection a week before the fire.

The labor department said it had reviewed the network’s product quality certificate and that it was in line with standards, but that the safety net had not been the focus of previous inspections.

Preliminary investigations showed that the fire started in a network of scaffolding located on the lower level of one of the buildings. It then spread quickly when the foam panels caught fire, said Chris Tang, the city’s safety secretary. Police also said they had been looking at the highly flammable foam panels.

“The fire ignited the foam panels, causing the glass to break and leading to rapid intensification of the fire and its spread to interior spaces,” Tang said.

The Labor Department said later Saturday that three cases were filed against the company for violations of safety standards for construction work at height and that convictions in two of the cases resulted in fines totaling HK$30,000, or $3,850. The company was also fined three times in 2023 for separate violations unrelated to the Tai Po project.

Rescuers also discovered that some fire alarms at the complex, which housed many elderly people, did not sound when they were tested, said Andy Yeung, director of Hong Kong Fire Services. He did not specify how many were not working or whether any of the others were.

The intense fire took days to put out

It took firefighters a day to bring the fire under control and it was not completely extinguished until Friday morning, about 40 hours after it started.

Crews prioritized apartments from which they had received emergency calls during the fire but could not arrive in the hours when the fire got out of control, Derek Armstrong Chan, deputy director of Hong Kong Fire Services, told reporters.

Twelve firefighters were among the 79 people injured in the fire and one firefighter died.

Even two days after the fire began, smoke continued to rise from the charred skeletons of the buildings due to occasional flare-ups.

More bodies may be found

While more bodies may be recovered, authorities said, crews have ended the search for anyone still trapped inside.

Authorities said Saturday they need to identify 44 more bodies of the 128 recovered. About 150 people are still missing.

The dead included two Indonesian migrant workers, Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday. Another 11 immigrants from the country who worked as maids at the apartment complex remain missing, Indonesian Consul General Yul Edison said Friday.

Near the fire scene, Sara Yu held the hand of her 2-year-old son, Dominic, as they each placed a white rose in a growing group of flowers in a small playground.

“I brought the children here because I want them to understand that living in this world is something we should cherish,” she said, fighting back tears.

Outside a building near the site of the fire where relatives came to identify their loved ones from photographs, people placed bouquets of white roses, lilies and carnations. “More than 128 innocent lives, what did they do wrong?” asked a sign placed among the flowers.

The city lowered flags to half-mast in mourning, and Chief Executive John Lee led a three-minute silence Saturday from government headquarters with officials all dressed in black.

The fire was the deadliest in Hong Kong in decades. A 1996 fire at a commercial building in Kowloon killed 41 people. A warehouse fire in 1948 killed 176 people, according to the South China Morning Post.