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…
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 a fire that killed 168 people at a Hong Kong housing estate is holding its third public hearing, with three residents expected to testify after a government lawyer gives an…
Contractors could face fines of up to HK$400,000 (US$51,068) for failing to prevent smoking at construction sites in Hong Kong under a government proposal to improve safety following the deadly Tai Po fire last November. The proposals, outlined in a paper prepared by the Labour Bureau, aim to tighten existing workplace safety laws and impose…
Residents of a housing complex destroyed in one of Hong Kong’s deadliest fires were misled into picking a convicted contractor for the estate’s renovation project amid “widespread” bid-rigging and other corruption in the construction industry, a public hearing has been told. The judge-led independent committee also heard on Friday that an engineering consultant allegedly accepted…
Hong Kong police have arrested five people and recovered nearly HK$100 million (US$12.7 million) worth of gold stolen in a suspected deception case, in which a “buyer” allegedly worked for a group that seized the haul before fleeing. The incident took place at about 2.45pm on Friday at an office in Peninsula Square, a commercial…
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. A public evidential hearing into a devastating fire that engulfed a residential complex in Hong Kong and killed 168 people enters its second day on Friday. Victor Dawes SC, lead barrister for an independent…
A firefighter killed in Hong Kong’s deadliest blaze in decades may have entered the wrong building amid the initial chaos at the scene and fallen from a height, the first day of a public hearing into the inferno has heard. More details surrounding the death of 37-year-old Ho Wai-ho, among the first batch of firefighters…
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. The first of a series of public evidential hearings into a fire that engulfed a residential complex in Hong Kong and killed at least 168 people begins on Thursday, nearly four months after the…
More than 300 homeowners from the fire-ravaged Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po have signed a petition to be sent to Hong Kong’s leader, demanding a face-to-face meeting with the government-appointed Hop On Management Company over unresolved issues. The letter to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, obtained by the South China Morning Post on Sunday,…
The Hong Kong Red Cross has raised HK$530 million (US$67.8 million) to provide emergency and long-term support to residents affected by the deadly Tai Po fire, with the NGO expecting all its relief and recovery efforts to be finished in five years. More than three months on from the Wang Fuk Court blaze that killed…