6 buildings so far, up to 5K in a building.

Wow. It looks like they were encased in bamboo scaffolding. That's probably how it spread.

https://www.cnn.com/world/live...ldings-fire-11-26-25

Very sad time and I can't imagine the loss of life. There is no way to fight something like that from a fire dept. standpoint.

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
Wow. It looks like they were encased in bamboo scaffolding. That's probably how it spread.

https://www.cnn.com/world/live...ldings-fire-11-26-25

When we lived in Saigon in '61-'62, 1st and 2nd grade for me, we went to Hong Kong twice on R&R.
I remember when we came into Kai Tak over the city using the "checkerboard" approach (IYKYK), I could look out the window of the C-54 at people on the balconies of their high rises and new high rises being built that had bamboo scaffolding. Amazing!

The news said 94 believed dead. I believe they could put two zeros behind that number and be pretty close to the mark.

It started around 2PM in the afternoon, when most adults are at work and schools were just letting out. It won't be anywhere near thousands dead, but still tragic.

Reminds me of the 2017 Grenfell Tower Fire in England.

Unfortunate in both cases.

Five or six separate buildings? That's got to be arson, no?

Last I heard, they'd arrested three people and they think it may have to do with the owners of the building.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c2emg1kj1klt

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Five or six separate buildings? That's got to be arson, no?

How it started is still unclear, but it spread quickly by the highly flammable nettings that drifted to the nearby buildings also draped with the same nettings.

I have a friend who is a building architect, and he lived in Asia for a time. He said the building industry over all of Asia is extremely corrupt.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/...NaVPZ5tlaI5CYxJJw%3D

Death Toll Rises to 146 in Hong Kong Fire, Beijing Warns Against Protests

Another 100 people are unaccounted for, and 79 were injured, the head of the Hong Kong police casualty unit said.

The death toll in the blaze that consumed an apartment complex in Hong Kong rose to 146 on Nov. 30, cementing the disaster as one of the city’s worst in history as mourners gather and leave flowers at a makeshift memorial.

The Hong Kong police Disaster Victim Identification Unit is meticulously sifting through the Wang Fuk Court complex and finding bodies in apartment units and on rooftops, according to Cheng Ka-chun, the officer in charge.

He told reporters that while the buildings are still structurally stable, the search has been slow.

“It is so dark inside, and because of the low light, it is very difficult to do the work, especially in places away from the windows,” he said while still wearing his white coveralls, a hard hat, and a respirator.

Cheng said that search teams have searched four of the seven apartment blocks.

Tsang Shuk-yin, the head of the Hong Kong police casualty unit, said the most recent searches uncovered another 30 bodies. Firefighters had previously discovered 12 of them but had been unable to recover them.

Additionally, another 100 people are unaccounted for, and 79 were left with injuries, Tsang added.

Mourners and well-wishers gathered at the scene of the disaster on Sunday, bowing, offering short prayers, and leaving handwritten notes and flowers.

“This really serves as a wake-up call for everyone, especially with these super high-rise buildings,” Lian Shuzheng told The Associated Press after waiting in a line of hundreds to leave flowers at the makeshift memorial.

Some have also donated supplies to victims who lost their possessions in the fire, which began on Wednesday and continued into Friday before firefighters extinguished it.

Authorities said they were investigating whether fire codes were violated when construction crews put bamboo scaffolding and nylon netting on the Wang Fuk Court complex’s buildings and polystyrene panels on its windows during recent renovations.

Construction Halted; Beijing Warns Protesters

Work on 28 other building projects by the same contractor—Prestige Construction & Engineering Company (PC&E)—has been immediately suspended amid safety audits, Hong Kong officials announced late on Nov. 29.
“The five alarm fire at Wang Fuk Court, Tai Po, exposed serious deficiencies of PC&E in site safety management, including the extensive use of foam boards to block up windows during building repairs,” the government said in a statement.

Local police arrested three men on suspicion of manslaughter the day after the blaze began. Two were directors of a construction company, and the other was an engineering consultant. Police have not yet publicly identified the construction firm by name.

The three men were briefly released on bail before Hong Kong’s anti-corruption authorities rearrested them along with eight other suspects, including renovation project managers for the apartment complex, directors of an engineering consulting firm, and scaffolding subcontractors.

Multiple petitions have surfaced in recent days demanding a full investigation of what transpired and triggered the massive fire.

China’s national security authority issued a warning on Nov. 29, threatening to take a “hard stance” against any “disruptive” actions resulting from the disaster.

It warned individuals not to use the fire to “plunge Hong Kong back into the chaos” of 2019, when pro-democracy protesters challenged the Chinese Communist Party’s regime, leading to a political crisis.

“We sternly warn the anti-China disruptors who attempt to ‘disrupt Hong Kong through disaster.’ No matter what methods you use, you will certainly be held accountable and strictly punished,” the authorities said.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Five or six separate buildings? That's got to be arson, no?

Not necessarily. With how hot that is likely burning, the radiant heat could easily catch those buildings given how close they are to each other. Especially if multiple buildings had that bamboo scaffolding.

Terrible and horrifying. I can't imagine trying to fight that sort of fire. One firefighter dead?

How are all 6 of those buildings still standing but the twin towers collapsed
In hours?

^^^ Those buildings didn't have 150-ton airplanes loaded with jet fuel hit them.

Guess: those buildings are 31 stories while the Twin Towers were 110 stories. The fires in theses apartment buildings only burned what was there and what was there was spread through the buildings. Presumably, whatever fire suppression systems were in place were able to keep up. With the Twin Towers, the jets that were crashed into the had full fuel loads. Still guessing, the buildings’ fire suppression systems just weren’t designed for that. Those fires were concentrated to a few floors and the steel was significantly weakened.

As a structural engineer, I studied the report on the Towers collapse and gave several presentations on it to high schoolers in the years following the reports release. In the 9/11 attack, the aircraft sheared a number of building’s exterior columns (which were concentrated at the perimeter and core) and knocked off much of the fireproofing on the girders and floor joists. Most if not all of the fire risers were sheared too. Adding massive amounts of jet fuel in the now unprotected building , the high heat caused members to extend and sag due to thermal expansion and once once collapsed, it resulted in a chain reaction and pancaking as one floor fell on another in sequence, bring the towers down. I don’t know how the HK buildings were protected but it sounds like a very different situation.

The Chinese government will probably pass an edict banning bamboo scaffolding and requiring fire proof netting. They looked the other way for too long, to keep the construction boom going and minimize costs, but now they have to act. And they will execute a few of the people already arrested to drive the point home.

We used to joke "It's China, safety 3rd!". Not just cheap scaffolding, but working at height without tethers, wearing sandals in factories, not wearing safety glasses, welding outside in the winter under a cardboard box to keep the wind out, you name it...

It's possible that the investigation finds the bamboo scaffolding were not responsible for the spreading of the fire. Once it's bindings burn away, the bamboo poles fall off and away from the building. The nettings are the more likely the cause, as they have shown to be flammable and clingy.