Hong Kong firefighters make final search for survivors after apartment tower blaze kills 94

HONG KONG AP Hong Kong firefighters combed through a high-rise apartment complex apartment-by-apartment Friday in a final attempt to find anyone alive after a massive fire engulfed seven of eight towers killing at least people in one of the city s deadliest blazes Crews were prioritizing apartments from which they received more than two dozen calls for assistance during the blaze but were unable to reach Wong Ka Wing a deputy director of Hong Kong Fire Services stated reporters early Friday morning Our firefighting operation is almost complete he announced The fire started midafternoon Wednesday in one of the Wang Fuk Court complex s eight towers jumping rapidly from one to the next as bamboo scaffolding covered in netting in place for renovations caught ablaze until seven buildings were engulfed It took more than firefighters chosen hours to bring the five-alarm blaze under control and even nearly two days later smoke continued to drift out of the charred skeletons of the buildings from the occasional flare-up The final search of the buildings was expected to be completed later Friday morning at which point personnel have mentioned they will officially end the rescue phase of their operation at the complex in Tai Po district a northern suburb near Hong Kong s edge with mainland China It was unclear how numerous people could possibly be inside the buildings which had almost apartments and selected residents Hong Kong leader John Lee mentioned early Thursday morning that bureaucrats had not been able to make contact with residents We will endeavor to force entry into all the units of the seven blocks concerned so as to ensure that there is no other feasible casualties Wong reported He disclosed an updated figure on the number of missing people cannot be calculated until the search and rescue operation is complete The apartments from which a total of unanswered rescue calls were received which are being prioritized were on higher floors where the fire was last to be extinguished he noted More than people were injured in the blaze including firefighters and about people were housed in temporary shelters Most of of the casualties were in the first two buildings to catch fire Wong mentioned The apartment complex housed a multitude of older people It was built in the s and had been undergoing a major renovation Hong Kong s anti-corruption agency noted on Thursday it was assessing feasible corruption relating to the renovation project Three men the directors and an engineering consultant of a construction company have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and police disclosed company leaders were suspected of gross negligence Police have not identified the company where the persons of interest worked but The Associated Press endorsed Prestige Construction Engineering Company was in charge of renovations in the tower complex Police have seized boxes of documents from the company where phones rang unanswered Thursday Bureaucrats suspected particular materials on the exterior walls of the high-rise buildings did not meet fire resistance standards allowing the unusually fast spread of the fire Police also noted they uncovered plastic foam panels which are highly flammable attached to the windows on each floor near the elevator lobby of the one unaffected tower The panels were deduced to have been installed by the construction company but the purpose was not clear Leadership planned immediate inspections of housing estates undergoing major renovations to ensure scaffolding and construction materials meet safety standards The fire was the deadliest in Hong Kong in decades A fire in a commercial building in Kowloon killed people Researcher Shihuan Chen in Beijing contributed to this assessment Source