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…
About 600 families from Hong Kong’s fire-ravaged Wang Fuk Court have requested a second visit to their flats, authorities have said, as residents of the most severely damaged tower return to salvage their belongings. While some survivors on Thursday morning recalled harrowing escapes from the worst-hit block and retrieved large items such as a television…
A public inquiry into Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades has shed light on government departments’ confusion over their roles in supervising large-scale renovation projects, with a fire service official insisting his department was not responsible for handling complaints about flammable building materials because it lacked expertise in construction. Michael Yung Kam-hung, an assistant director…
The first local case of dengue fever recorded for the first time in more than a year in Hong Kong indicates that undiagnosed imported cases could lead to an outbreak in the coming months, a health official has warned, while stressing that the risk was preventable. The warning by Albert Au Ka-wing, head of the…
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Four officers from Hong Kong’s fire department are testifying on Wednesday before an independent committee investigating the Wang Fuk Court fire, as hearings enter their 17th day. The conflagration, which broke out on November…