Displaced residents of the fire-hit blocks at Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court may be allowed repeated trips back to their flats to collect belongings, after officials softened their stance amid an online petition appealing for greater flexibility. Deputy Chief Secretary Warner Cheuk Wing-hing said on Monday that residents who wished to go back and forth…
Survivors of Hong Kong’s deadliest blaze in decades have mourned a woman who heroically knocked on neighbours’ doors to alert them to the flames but died in the tragedy, after fire alarms at Wang Fuk Court failed to go off. Pak Shui-lin’s husband, Sdanni Yip Ka-kui, and neighbour Lam Yin-ming, both Wang Tai House residents,…
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Public hearings by a judge-led independent committee investigating Hong Kong’s deadliest blaze in decades entered their sixth day and focused on the deactivation of the fire alarm systems at the Wang Fuk Court housing…
This article was first published on April 2, 2016. by Eddie Lee Staff, fans bid farewell to broadcaster It was finally curtains for Asia Television last night (April 1, 2016) after a couple of near-shutdowns last month and one dramatic twist after another to the embattled station’s chequered final episode. Just before the stroke of…
The seventh session of the independent inquiry into last year’s fire at Wang Fuk Court – Hong Kong’s deadliest in decades – is under way with the focus turning to ISS EastPoint, the estate’s property management firm. The blaze, which started on November 26 last year and raged through seven of Wang Fuk Court’s eight…
A property management worker at the housing estate ravaged by Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades was unaware that fire alarms had been deactivated after the hose reel system was shut down for water tank repairs, an evidentiary hearing has been told. On the sixth day of hearings by an independent committee investigating the November…
Displaced residents from the seven fire-ravaged blocks of Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court will be allowed to return to their flats for up to three hours to collect their personal belongings, with the first batch to be allowed back on April 20. Authorities said on Friday that each household could register up to four people…
Two people have been injured in an explosion at a recycling yard in northern Hong Kong, with online footage showing towering flames and billowing black smoke following the blast. Police said they received a report at 11.02am on Thursday that an explosion had been heard at a site, said to be a recycling yard, at…
A public evidential hearing by an independent committee into a fire that killed 168 people at a Hong Kong estate has entered its fourth day, with more residents set to testify. One resident who testified on Thursday said piles of rubbish were seen outside the building that first caught fire at Wang Fuk Court estate,…
A lawyer for the Hong Kong government has rejected “groundless” assertions that its surveyors conspired with a renovation contractor at the centre of the city’s deadliest fire in decades to conceal flammable materials used at the site, suggesting the firm did not have enough time to plan a deception before a crucial inspection. But Jenkin…