Hong Kong — As the confirmed death toll from the Hong Kong apartment complex fire climbed to at least 151 on Monday, officials said their investigation into the blaze had found that mesh used to covered scaffolding for ongoing renovations was not up to fire-safety codes.
Frustration over what appears to have been clear safety lapses ahead of the devastating fire — which took more than two days to extinguish as it engulfed seven of the complex’s eight towers — was being met with government moves to stifle criticism.
Initial tests of the netting that had enshrouded the scaffolding showed it met safety regulations, but Hong Kong officials said Monday that investigators had since gained access to more areas to collect samples, including from higher floors.
Hong Kong Chief Secretary Eric Chan said seven of the 20 new samples of the synthetic mesh had failed fire safety standards, suggesting contractors may have opted for cost-saving over the safety of residents and workers.
“They just wanted to make money at the expense of people’s lives,” Chan told reporters.
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Recovery teams found another eight bodies, including those of three firefighters located earlier but which workers had been unable to retrieve, Tsang Shuk-yin, head of the Hong Kong police’s casualty enquiry unit told reporters on Monday. She said more than 30 people were still listed as missing, but some were likely among the nearly 40 sets of remains recovered but yet to be identified.
“We will have to wait until we get through all seven blocks before we can make a final report,” she said, adding that some remains were likely so badly burned that identification could prove impossible.
About 4,600 people lived in the eight buildings of the Wang Fuk Court complex, which is in the Hong Kong suburb of Tai Po, not far from the border with mainland China.
Monday was to be the last day of an official mourning period declared by authorities, and thousands of people turned out to pay their respects, laying flowers, toys and notes for the victims, many of whom where children and the elderly.
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Police have released photos from inside the charred buildings, where they found the bodies of residents who had tried to escape the inferno in stairwells and on rooftops.
One deeply distraught man at the scene on Monday told CBS News that his sons had just identified the remains of his 66-year-old wife, who died in the fire. He said he was demanding answers from the government as to how the disaster could have happened.
Anger has mounted in Hong Kong since the fire erupted on Wednesday morning last week. It had already been revealed that the fire alarms were turned off in the complex, and for months, residents had issued warnings about what they believed to be hazardous materials covering the buildings during the renovation.
As of Monday, 14 people had been arrested for suspected manslaughter, and authorities were not ruling out further arrests.
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The level of public angst has rattled Beijing, to the extent that the central government issued a warning to Hong Kongers against any protests or using the fire to “disrupt” life in the city.
The warning drew parallels to the crackdown on pro-democracy protests that paralyzed the city in 2019.
Three people had been arrested on Monday under a sweeping national security law imposed in the wake of those protests. Their lawyer says they were detained for starting a petition calling for an independent inquiry into the fire — a sign of how concerned Beijing is that the tragedy could lead to fresh civil unrest in the previously semi-autonomous southern metropolis.
