Fire engulfs high-rise buildings in Hong Kong 36 killed, 279 missing

A devastating fire tore through a cluster of high-rise apartment buildings in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district on Wednesday, killing at least 36 people including a firefighter and leaving 279 others missing, in what has become the city’s deadliest blaze in years.

The inferno erupted mid-afternoon at the external bamboo scaffolding of a 32-storey tower undergoing renovation and rapidly spread across seven buildings in the eight-tower housing complex.



Fuelled by construction netting and strong winds, the flames shot up the structures and leapt to adjoining buildings, sending thick smoke billowing across the suburb in the New Territories.

Hundreds of residents, many of them elderly, were forced to evacuate as debris and burning scaffolding rained down. About 900 people were moved to temporary shelters as firefighters battled the blaze, with more than 140 fire trucks and 60 ambulances deployed.