The tragic fire in Hong Kong, marking the deadliest in decades, has sparked intense scrutiny over potential corruption and neglect in the renovation processes of the apartment complex where at least 128 lives were lost.
The blaze erupted at the Wang Fuk Court complex, located in Hong Kong’s northern suburbs, on Wednesday afternoon. The inferno rapidly spread across seven of the eight towers within the development.
This residential complex housed approximately 4,800 inhabitants. Some residents had previously voiced concerns about safety issues related to renovations more than a year before the catastrophe unfolded.
The Indonesian Consul General, Yul Edison, reported on Friday that 11 other individuals, who were working as domestic helpers and were migrants from Indonesia, are still unaccounted for.
In a poignant scene near the disaster site, Sara Yu, holding her two-year-old son Dominic’s hand, placed a white rose amidst a growing memorial of flowers at a small playground.
“I brought my children here to teach them that life is precious and should be valued,” she expressed, her voice choked with emotion.
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Outside a building close to the scene of the fire where family members came to identify loved ones from photographs, people placed bouquets of white roses, lilies and carnations.
“More than 128 innocent lives, what did they do wrong?” asked a sign placed among the flowers.
The city lowered flags to half staff in mourning, and Chief Executive John Lee, led a three-minute silence on Saturday from the government headquarters with officials all dressed in black.
The fire was the deadliest in Hong Kong in decades. A 1996 fire in a commercial building in Kowloon killed 41 people.
A warehouse fire in 1948 killed 176 people, according to the South China Morning Post.
