Hong Kong authorities have officially extended a buy-back offer to the only residential block spared in the deadly Wang Fuk Court blaze after more than three-quarters of households indicated their intention to sell their flats to the government. Owners of 78 per cent of the flats in the other seven blocks at the Tai Po…
A 50-year-old woman died and three other people were hospitalised after a fire in a Hong Kong flat on Friday that authorities said was caused by a malfunctioning power strip. Police said the blaze broke out at Valiant Court in Ho Man Tin at around 10.04am. Fire services were immediately deployed to the scene and…
An independent committee investigating Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades has ruled out seeking statutory powers to compel witnesses to testify, a move that has left some survivors concerned that key figures may avoid scrutiny. Committee chairman Justice David Lok Kai-hong said the panel would not ask the chief executive to convert it into a…
Factoring Hong Kong’s deadly Tai Po fire into a civil service pay review has dealt a blow to staff morale and risks creating perceptions of populism, unions have warned, saying a proposed 2 per cent across-the-board rise fails to offset inflation or reflect overall performance. Human resources experts, however, said public sentiment had to be…
A 30-year-old woman has died and two other people remain in a critical condition following a suspicious fire at a flat in Hong Kong’s affluent Mid-Levels district, with police later uncovering drug-taking apparatus in a bedroom. The Hospital Authority confirmed on Sunday that the woman, who had been rushed to Ruttonjee Hospital in Wan Chai,…
Hong Kong’s Fire Services Department has given approval for 3,600 old low-rise residential buildings to install a new Internet of Things (IoT) smart fire alarm system as an alternative to traditional fire-safety equipment, following a successful pilot scheme in the first quarter of this year. The IoT-enabled system consists of detectors installed in individual flats…
Inside the cluttered, silent flat at Wang Fuk Court, time seems to stand still. On the bathroom door, a calendar remains frozen on the page of November 2025 – the month a deadly fire broke out at the Tai Po estate in Hong Kong. On what was believed to be their final visit to the…
Hong Kong’s note-issuing banks are replacing burnt cash for Wang Fuk Court residents, following emergency measures introduced by the city’s Monetary Authority and lenders to support those affected by last November’s devastating fire at the Tai Po estate. The extent of the residents’ financial losses came into the spotlight as they returned to the site…
A Hong Kong resident has died and four others were injured after a fire broke out late on Thursday in an old building under renovation in Jordan, prompting the evacuation of about 300 people. Police received a report at 10.49pm of a fire in a subdivided flat in the 62-year-old Man Yuen Building on Man…
Owners at Wang Chi House, the only block spared in Hong Kong’s fire-ravaged Wang Fuk Court, have until October 15 to finalise the sale of homes under a government buyback scheme – provided more than 75 per cent of them indicate their intention to sell by the end of next month. However, the tight timeline…