Nearly 80 per cent of homeowners of the only block spared in the deadly Wang Fuk Court blaze in Hong Kong have expressed an initial willingness to sell their flats to the government, exceeding the three-quarters threshold set by authorities to extend a resettlement plan to them. Deputy Financial Secretary Michael Wong Wai-lun said on…
Government surveyors failed to detect major fire risks at a housing complex destroyed in Hong Kong’s deadliest inferno in decades because they were following outdated guidelines that did not require in-person inspections of renovation works, a public inquiry has heard. The independent committee was told on Monday that illegal alterations to Wang Fuk Court’s emergency…
Grieving relatives of domestic helpers killed in the Tai Po fire have struggled to break the news to victims’ children while fending off scammers targeting their compensation from Hong Kong authorities, according to a workers’ rights advocate after a trip to Indonesia. Esther Tse Yan-yin, an organiser from the Association for the Rights of Industrial…
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. An independent committee investigating Hong Kong’s deadly Wang Fuk Court fire will scrutinise the roles of building and home affairs authorities on the 20th day of evidential hearings. Four witnesses from the Buildings Department…
The reserves of Hong Kong’s largest international school group have more than tripled to HK$3.75 billion (US$480.8 million) in over a decade, even as it taps different income sources to offset shrinking government subsidies, the South China Morning Post has found by reviewing the organisation’s annual reports. The English Schools Foundation (ESF) also said in…
An image of a Hong Kong construction worker smoking a cigarette while on bamboo scaffolding at a residential building has prompted outrage among internet users, who have drawn comparisons with the suspected cause of the city’s deadliest fire in decades. An image shared on a Facebook page called the Shau Kei Wan Sai Wan Ho…
Hong Kong’s fire services chief has acknowledged that better communication with building authorities is needed after an independent committee earlier revealed that his officers had taken no action against possible safety breaches during renovations at Wang Fuk Court, where 168 people were killed in last year’s inferno. But Director of Fire Services Andy Yeung Yan-kin…
Playing one last song on a piano that cannot be retrieved from a fire-ravaged home is among the wishes of residents returning to the scene of the deadly Tai Po blaze, with one man climbing stairs on a fractured leg to try and recover a water boiler linked to his childhood memories. Some of those…
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. The head of the Fire Services Department will give evidence on the 19th day of evidential hearings into Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades, becoming the most senior official to testify to date. Director…
Hong Kong’s fire services declined to activate an emergency alert during the city’s deadliest inferno in decades, citing concerns that it might have caused confusion among trapped residents, a public inquiry has heard. An independent committee investigating last year’s disaster at Wang Fuk Court was also told on Thursday that the system, which would have…