An independent committee examining the causes of Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades, which claimed 168 lives at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po, concluded its second round of hearings on Wednesday.
Chung Kit-man, director and engineer of Victory Fire Engineering, the contractor responsible for the estate’s fire service equipment, testified again on conflicting accounts over the draining of the buildings’ water tanks.
Keung Sai-ming, an assistant director for licensing and certification at the Fire Services Department, said that Victory Fire was responsible for notifying the department about the shutdown of the fire services system.
But Chung countered that his company did not have enough information to issue such a notice.
The committee also questioned Leung Ping-kay, a director at China Status Development and Engineering, the contractor that applied to deactivate the estate’s fire hydrant and hose reel system.
Leung agreed with remarks by Victor Dawes, the committee’s lead counsel, that China Status was merely a “rubber stamp” for the renovation contractor, Prestige Construction and Engineering, in issuing shutdown notices.
Proceedings resumed on Wednesday after an earlier round of eight hearings that focused on the deactivation of the estate’s fire alarms, one of six “human factors” identified by Dawes as contributing to the tragedy.
Evidence showed that the main power switch for the fire service pump and alarms serving all eight blocks had been turned off by estate manager ISS EastPoint Properties to allow renovation works on a rooftop fire water tank.
A week before the blaze, Victory Fire discovered the system had been switched off but took no action to notify the Fire Services Department or press the management company to restore the alarms, the committee heard.
The blaze, which started on November 26 last year and raged through seven of the estate’s eight towers for about 43 hours, killed 168 people and displaced nearly 5,000 residents.
Follow our live updates on the ninth day of the evidential hearing.
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