Hong Kong authorities will submit a draft law by the end of this year to strengthen enforcement against fire safety violations, including issuing fixed penalties alongside existing prosecution options that can take months to carry out. Responding to questions from the South China Morning Post, a Security Bureau spokeswoman said that a fixed penalty system…
Firefighters have described the gruelling conditions they faced in their search for survivors of Hong Kong’s worst fire in more than seven decades, with rescuers climbing dozens of flights of stairs as they conserved oxygen to look for anyone alive on the higher floors. For some firefighters, the operation has left them with feelings of…
As Hong Kong mourns the victims of the deadly Tai Po blaze and questions emerge on accountability, experts have called for much tighter supervision of building maintenance and fire safety by authorities to hold relevant parties responsible so that future tragedies can be averted. They gave this assessment as the government set up an interdepartmental…
The failure of fire alarms in the deadly Tai Po blaze could have delayed the response and evacuation of residents, according to a leading Hong Kong fire safety specialist. Anthony Lam Chun-man, a former director of the Fire Services Department, also said the extreme heat and intense flames both inside and outside made it almost…
Excessive heat and raging flames that engulfed a Tai Po estate in one of Hong Kong’s deadliest fires posed the biggest challenges for firefighters, experts have said, as they dismissed suggestions that height limitations of aerial ladders added to the blaze’s severity. They were responding to widespread online speculation that the severity of the highest…