Hong Kong high-rise building on Fire

[meadow_wind]

Here's the timeline reconstructed (published Dec 1st)

Hong Kong authorities have launched a criminal investigation into the city’s deadliest fire that killed at least 149 people. Scores more have been sent to hospital, with some in a critical condition. The disaster started to unfold on November 26, 2025, when a fire broke out at a housing estate in Tai Po. Firefighters were still battling blazes in three of the seven blocks involved nearly 20 hours after the fire started.


Published Nov 27

Hong Kong fire death toll rises to 83 as survivor found on stairs of building - as it happened

Many still missing while grief-stricken mother says she lost her baby in the fire.

www.scmp.com

Published Dec 3

Brief return to fire-hit Hong Kong estate for some residents – as it happened

Authorities also say scaffolding mesh on about 200 buildings across the city must be taken down within three days.

www.scmp.com

What we know so far:
159 people, including a firefighter, confirmed dead. (Of the total, 140 people have been identified. Nineteen remain to be identified.)
79 injured, including 12 firefighters (37 injured people remain in hospital, with four in a critical condition. Nine are seriously injured.)
About 30 people remain unaccounted for
HK$2.3 billion raised for rescue and relief efforts
The eight blocks in Wang Fuk Court had been undergoing renovations since July 2024, covered in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh
Authorities say highly flammable styrofoam and substandard mesh caused the fire to spread rapidly
Government is setting up a judge-led independent review committee to investigate the disaster

Firm allegedly used fake safety certificates
Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung says authorities are investigating a company that allegedly used falsified safety certificates for its scaffolding netting at Fung Wah Estate in Chai Wan and Fu Dat Court in Fortress Hill.

Mesh must be removed at 200 buildings by Saturday
All scaffolding mesh used on about 200 buildings across the city must be taken down within three days, or by Saturday, for the sake of public safety, Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho says.
She also announces a new arrangement to test mesh by sampling it on site upon delivery, and for it to be tested by government-appointed labs.

6 arrested over fire alarm system
Chow says police have arrested six more people, on top of the earlier 15, in connection with the fire.

3 Indonesian helpers still unaccounted for

Forensic tests on remains
“We found some bones, and will get them tested and verified whether they are from animals or human beings,” police chief Chow says.
“We will try to test their DNA to confirm their identities and stay in contact with families who have reported their loved ones missing.”

Victims aged between 1 and 97
Commissioner of Police Joe Chow Yat-ming says that the victims were aged between one year and 97. Among them were 49 men and 91 women. He warns the death toll may rise further as identification continues over the remains found in flats.
Three male and two female workers on the site, and 10 domestic helpers died in the fire.
Chow says 70 bodies were found in Wang Cheong House, the first building to catch fire. Another 82 dead were found in Wang Tai House. Three bodies were found in Wang Sun House, two in Wang Tao House, and one in Wang Shing House.

 

[Myeong In]

One fire, two systems: Hong Kong's grief meets Beijing's red lines

Highlight:

Under the national security regime, the line between civic action and political threat has blurred beyond recognition.

What used to be routine — filing complaints, demanding accountability, launching petitions, helping neighbours — now carries an implied risk.

Beijing's insistence that sovereignty cannot be challenged has reshaped even the vocabulary of disaster. A call for answers can be reframed as agitation. Grief can be interpreted as defiance. Volunteerism can be treated as "gathering".

As a Hong Kong citizen, I feel sad to see the increasing political control. National stability is prioritized. Actions from local people are distrusted.

Below is the whole article

Before the smoke had even cleared at Wang Fuk Court, Hongkongers were already drawing their own conclusions.

A construction worker who grew up climbing bamboo scaffolding looked at the charred tower and spoke with quiet certainty: Certified nets do not burn like that.

"A cigarette can't light them," he said. "Even a blowtorch barely gets bamboo to burn — it only chars."
Online experiments that circulated within hours appeared to confirm what residents had long suspected: Bamboo under intense heat darkens, but does not spread flames.

In Tai Po, the nets were reduced to ash while the bamboo frame remained almost unscathed.

It was this unsettling contrast — and the speed at which the fire tore upward — that led a 24-year-old university student to launch a petition demanding an independent investigation.

He barely had time to gather signatures before police arrested him for "incitement".

The message was clear: Even grief had boundaries, and asking questions was now a political act.

From that moment, sorrow gave way to anger. And the city's fault lines — rights versus sovereignty, people versus power — snapped sharply back into focus.

A deeper fracture​

The blaze that consumed Wang Fuk Court burned for two days, but its political shock waves may echo for weeks, even months.

It did more than destroy homes. It revived one of Hong Kong's most visceral fears; that lives can be reduced to collateral in a system that no longer listens.

What should have been a moment of collective mourning instead widened the fracture between Hongkongers demanding accountability and a government increasingly shaped by Beijing's doctrine that sovereignty sits above all else.

And this time, the anger was not directed at local officials alone — it was aimed squarely at Beijing.

For many residents, the horror of the fire lay not only in the ferocity of the flames but in the recognition that everything they had worked for — homes bought with decades of savings, belongings accumulated through sacrifice — could be erased in a night.

Hong Kong's housing crisis has long fed collective anxiety, but this disaster struck its deepest nerve. In a city where ordinary families already struggle with extremely unaffordable flats, even the illusion of safety can no longer be taken for granted.

The sense of betrayal deepened when Beijing issued a warning not to let "a disaster disrupt Hong Kong", reinforcing the belief that the state prioritised protecting its authority, not its people.

When grief becomes political risk​

The unease grew when volunteers and NGOs who rushed to help the displaced were abruptly ordered to leave the site.

Many had been distributing food, locating documents, offering emotional support. Suddenly, they were told to withdraw on Sunday.

For many Hongkongers, the scene was familiar. A compassionate response — neighbours helping one another — had become politically sensitive.

Authorities appeared to fear that the disaster zone, with swelling crowds and rising frustration, might become a gathering point for something larger.

In a city still haunted by 2019, solidarity itself had become suspect.

Inside Wang Fuk Court, residents were not surprised that the fire spread so fast. Some had long questioned whether the scaffolding nets used during a renovation met flame-retardant standards.

Others filed complaints as early as 2023, warning of fire risks.

A contractor even wrote to the Fire Services Department requesting clarity on safety requirements — letters that, residents say, went unanswered.

When the alarms failed to sound and the flames climbed from the lower floors to the roof within minutes, suspicions hardened into conviction: Someone should have known, and someone should have acted.
The arrest of the petition organiser — paired with the removal of volunteers — made something unavoidable: the space for Hongkongers to demand answers, or simply to show up for one another, has been quietly but steadily erased.

Under the national security regime, the line between civic action and political threat has blurred beyond recognition.

What used to be routine — filing complaints, demanding accountability, launching petitions, helping neighbours — now carries an implied risk.

Beijing's insistence that sovereignty cannot be challenged has reshaped even the vocabulary of disaster. A call for answers can be reframed as agitation. Grief can be interpreted as defiance. Volunteerism can be treated as "gathering".

This worldview stands in stark contrast to Hong Kong's own political culture, shaped over decades by courts that earned public trust, an investigative tradition that valued transparency, and a society that once expected — even demanded — accountability from those in power.

Two systems, one eroding trust​

For residents, the questions were immediate and practical. Why did the alarms fail? Why did the nets ignite so quickly? Why were earlier warnings ignored? Who will take responsibility?

For authorities, the questions were political. Could public anger spill into unrest? Could demands for accountability turn into mobilisation? Could crowds at the disaster site grow into something larger? Who must be monitored — not who must be heard?

This is why, for many, the fire now stands as a symbol of something larger — a reckoning not only with safety failures but with a governance model that asks citizens to trust a system that no longer feels accountable to them.

While officials have pledged support for displaced residents, the shift toward a political narrative has been unmistakable: The arrest, the "care teams", the warnings about "disruption".
What has been largely missing is the principle that once made Hong Kong governable — that when something goes wrong, the government owes the public not only an explanation, but accountability.

This tension is no longer peripheral.

It goes to the heart of Hong Kong's identity. If the mainland's worldview is built on the primacy of the state, Hong Kong's has been shaped by the belief that individuals have the right to safety, dignity and due process.

The Tai Po fire showed what happens when those two systems collide.

In the days after the blaze, residents sifted through ash — passports, wedding photos, a child's cherished toy — fragments of lives interrupted.

But the emotional landscape of the city was shaped by a different kind of loss: The erosion of faith that the system exists to protect them, not to discipline them.

Beijing may want the flames in Tai Po to fade quickly. But what they revealed may not.