When fire alarms failed, this woman livestreamed her escape from the Hong Kong apartment inferno to warn other residents. The live-in nanny rescued her employer’s baby as she raced down 23 flights of stairs at the Wang Fuk Court complex, where at least 146 people lost their lives.
Published On 30 Nov 202530 Nov 2025
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Published On 30 Nov 202530 Nov 2025
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From deadly floods in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, to antigovernment protests in the Philippines and demonstrations in Italy to show solidarity with Gaza, here is a look at the week in photos.
Hong Kong began a five-day mourning period on Saturday, after at least 128 people were killed in fires at a high-rise apartment complex. Officials held a three-minute silence as residents laid flowers near the towers. Authorities say around 200 people are still missing.
Published On 29 Nov 202529 Nov 2025
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At least 128 people died and 200 remain missing after the towers housing 4,600 people were engulfed by flames.
Published On 29 Nov 202529 Nov 2025
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People in Hong Kong are mourning the deaths of at least 128 people who died in the region’s largest blaze in decades in an eight-apartment residential complex.
The flags outside the central government offices were lowered to half-mast on Saturday as Hong Kong leader John Lee, other officials and civil servants, all dressed in black, gathered to pay their respects to those lost at the Wang Fuk Court estate since the fire on Wednesday.
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Condolence books have been set up at 18 points around the former British colony for the public to pay their respects, officials said.
At the site of the residential complex, families and mourners gathered to lay flowers.
By Friday, only 39 of the victims had been identified, leaving families with the morbid task of looking at the photographs of the deceased taken by rescue workers.
The number of victims could still dramatically rise as some 200 people remain missing, with authorities declaring the end of the search for survivors on Friday.
But identification work and search for remains continues, as Lee said the government is setting up a fund with 300 million Hong Kong dollars ($39m) in capital to help the residents.
The local community is also pitching in, with hundreds of volunteers mobilising to help the victims, including by distributing food and other essential items. Some of China’s biggest companies have pledged donations as well.
The Wang Fuk Court fire marks Hong Kong’s deadliest since 1948, when 176 people died in a warehouse blaze.
At least 11 people have been arrested in connection with the tragedy, according to local authorities.
They include two directors and an engineering consultant of the firm identified by the government as doing maintenance on the towers for more than a year, who are accused of manslaughter for using unsafe materials.
The towers, located in the northern district of Tai Po, were undergoing renovations, with the highly flammable bamboo scaffolding and green mesh used to cover the building believed to be a major facilitator of the quick spread of the blaze.
Most of the victims were found in two towers in the complex, with seven of the eight towers suffering extensive damage, including from flammable foam boards used by the maintenance company to seal and protect windows.
The deadly incident has prompted comparisons with the blaze at the Grenfell Tower in London that killed 72 people in 2017, with the fire blamed on flammable cladding on the tower’s exterior, as well as on failings by the government and the construction industry.
“Our hearts go out to all those affected by the horrific fire in Hong Kong,” the Grenfell United survivors’ group said in a short statement on social media.
“To the families, friends and communities, we stand with you. You are not alone.”
Bamboo scaffolding, a centuries-old technique that was traditionally ubiquitous in Hong Kong, is under scrutiny for its role in the city’s deadliest fire in more than a century.
At least 55 people have died, and hundreds are still missing since scaffolding at a housing estate in Tai Po district caught fire on Wednesday, according to the latest government figures.
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Bamboo is cheap, lightweight, and strong enough to withstand the city’s many typhoons and tropical storms. Hundreds of bamboo poles can often be seen lashed together on the side of a modern office tower.
But could one of Hong Kong’s iconic symbols also have served as the kindling for one of its most horrific tragedies in decades?
Buildings or housing estates – like the one in Tai Po district – encased in bamboo during significant renovation projects are not a rare sight in the city-state. Sometimes, the scaffolding can remain up for a year or more.
Bamboo scaffolding is built by speciality workers known as “spiders”. They lash together bamboo poles to build intricate grid-like scaffolding that is then typically covered in additional netting to catch construction materials.
While the use of bamboo has faded in other parts of Asia, it has been hard to replace it completely in Hong Kong, even with options such as metal scaffolding, said experts.
“It’s light, cheap and fast to build with,” Ehsan Noroozinejad, a senior researcher and construction expert at Western Sydney University, Australia, told Al Jazeera. “Crews carry poles by hand, cut them on site, and wrap awkward facades without cranes. That speed and flexibility keep projects moving and costs down.”
Because it is “light and easy to cut”, bamboo scaffolding also fits the narrow living environment of Hong Kong, said Xinyan Huang, deputy director of the Research Centre for Fire Safety Engineering at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
But there are other reasons, too, why bamboo is hard to replace.
“It [Hong Kong] has a long history, so it is a tradition, and it is not easy to change tradition,” Huang told Al Jazeera by email. “Any change in the construction industry will meet much resistance from current players.”
There are 4,000 bamboo scaffolding workers in the city, Hong Kong Free Press reported, citing union figures, although the industry is on the decline thanks to increased competition from metal scaffolding and an ageing cohort of workers.
Prior to the fire, most concerns around bamboo scaffolding have focused on worker safety.
There were 22 fatal workplace accidents involving bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong between 2018 and 2024, according to government figures. Six accidents occurred while new scaffolding was being built, while the rest took place during repairs.
Besides the fact that bamboo is by its very nature combustible, it is also structurally weaker and less stable than steel, according to Huang. He told Al Jazeera that it should be phased out for larger projects.
“I think the bamboo scaffolding can be used for small-scale applications, such as installing an air conditioning unit and replacing a window of a room. However, the large-scale usage such as covering the entire building facade should be stopped. Perhaps, a maximum area of bamboo scaffolding can be defined in future regulation,” he said.
The fire is the deadliest in Hong Kong in more than a century, since a blaze in 1918 at the Happy Valley Racecourse in British Hong Kong led to the deaths of more than 600 people.
Bamboo scaffolding played a big role in spreading the fire, according to experts like Anwar Orabi, a lecturer in fire safety engineering at the University of Queensland, although it was helped by other materials in the estate.
The fire broke out on the scaffolding of one of the estate’s towers on Wednesday, but the speed with which the fire spread took many observers by surprise. Orabi said the design of the scaffolding made it difficult to keep the blaze limited to just a few floors.
“In my point of view, the scaffolding presented a path for the fire to spread vertically which compromised compartmentation. The fire ‘climbed’ the scaffolding, and ignited the multiple fuel sources in people’s homes,” he told Al Jazeera by email.
“Fire can break windows by imposing a strong heat flux [flow of heat] which heats up the glass and breaks it. It is also possible that many people left their windows open resulting in ingress of the fire. This resulted in a multi-storey fire,” he said. Heat radiation and embers from one building helped spread the fire to the next, he said, ultimately engulfing seven towers.
Hong Kong officials also say substandard construction materials were another contributing factor. The South China Morning Post reported that the netting placed over the scaffolding did not adhere to the fire code, citing local officials.
Senior police superintendent Eileen Chung said highly flammable Styrofoam boards had also been placed in windows in the housing estate’s lifts, public broadcaster RTHK reported, helping the fire spread.
Two directors and one engineering consultant from the company behind the construction have been detained, Chung confirmed.
Hong Kong’s leader, John Lee Ka-chiu, has promised that all housing estates undergoing significant improvements will now be inspected.
“The government has immediately arranged for inspections of all housing estates across the city undergoing major repairs, to examine the safety of scaffolding and building materials,” he wrote on Facebook.
Tiffany Wertheimerand
Yvette Tan
A devastating fire has ripped through a high-rise public housing complex in Hong Kong, killing at least 55 people, making it the city’s deadliest in more than 60 years. More than 270 people have been reported missing and thousands of residents are in evacuation shelters.
Images from the scene show several of the high-rise blocks still ablaze, and thick smoke billowing into the air, dominating the Chinese territory’s skyline.
Three men have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter connected to the fire, according to local media reports, and an investigation has been launched.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has expressed condolences to victims, including a “firefighter who died in the line of duty”, state media report.
What caused the blaze is still unclear, but here is what we do know, so far.
The blaze broke out at Wang Fuk Court, a large housing complex in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district, at 14:51 local time on Wednesday (06:51 GMT).
Wang Fuk Court consists of eight tower blocks, each 31 storeys high. Seven have been affected by the fire, Tai Po district councillor Mui Siu-fung told BBC Chinese. Built in 1983, the tower blocks were undergoing renovations when the fire broke out.
Tai Po is a residential district in the northern part of Hong Kong, near the city of Shenzhen on the Chinese mainland.
The complex provides 1,984 apartments for some 4,600 residents, according to a 2021 government census.
Nearly 40% of the 4,600 people who lived in the Wang Fuk Court housing complex are at least 65, or older, according to the census.
Some of them have lived in the subsidised public housing estate since it was built.
The cause of the fire is unknown but a preliminary investigation found that the rapid speed at which it spread was unusual, Hong Kong’s security secretary said early on Thursday morning.
Police say a mesh material and plastic sheets were found on the outside of the buildings – both of which are not believed to be fireproof.
Styrofoam was also found on the building’s windows – and that, together with the other construction materials is likely to have caused the flames to spread so quickly, said police.
Police have arrested three men aged between 52 and 68 on suspicion of manslaughter in connection with the deadly blaze – two of them are directors of a construction firm while the other is an engineering consultant.
A police spokesperson said investigators were looking into the alleged actions, or failure to act, of the firm’s top officials.
“We have reason to believe that those in charge at the company were grossly negligent, which led to this accident and caused the fire to spread uncontrollably, resulting in major casualties,” said the spokesperson.
Local media reports also quote some residents who say the fire alarms in the building did not go off.
This is Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in at least 63 years and has been classified as a level five alarm – the highest in severity.
Within 40 minutes of first being reported, it was declared a level four, but by 18:22, about three and a half hours later, the level was raised again.
Local media had earlier reported that explosions could be heard inside the building and fire hoses could not easily reach the higher levels.
The ferocity of the heat had prevented firefighters from entering the buildings to conduct rescue operations, deputy director of fire services Derek Armstrong Chan told media.
As well as 767 firefighters, 128 fire engines, 57 ambulances and some 400 police officers were deployed.
Among the dead is firefighter Ho Wai-ho, 37, who was with the service at Sha Tin Fire Station for nine years.
The fire service says it lost contact with him at 15:30, and about half an hour later, found that he had collapsed. He was taken to hospital but declared dead shortly after.
“I am profoundly grieved at the loss of this dedicated and gallant fireman,” said Andy Yeung, director of the fire service.
At least one other firefighter is in hospital, the Hong Kong fire service said.
Police officers have been helping residents search for family members by using a loudspeaker, say local media reports.
Several emergency shelters have been set up to accommodate residents who were evacuated, the government said. The South China Morning Post reported that one of them – at Tung Cheong Street Sports Centre – was full, and residents were being directed to other shelters.
Another, the Kwong Fuk Community Hall, which is just over the road from the housing estate, was deemed unsafe. Evacuees were moved to another shelter, further away.
BBC Chinese reporter Gemini Cheng saw elderly residents, some using walking sticks or wheelchairs, arriving at some of the shelters.
At least 900 people are taking shelter in such temporary facilities, Agence France-Presse reports, quoting Lee.
Six schools in Tai Po will remain closed on Thursday, the Education Bureau announced, listing the affected schools on its website.
An emergency monitoring and support centre is in operation to manage the impact of the fire, security secretary Tang Ping-keung said in a statement.
A hotline for the public to ask about casualties has been set up by Hong Kong police.
ReutersThe tower blocks at Wang Fuk Court are covered in bamboo scaffolding and green construction netting, right up to the rooftops, because they are undergoing renovations.
As mentioned earlier, police have attributed the quick spread of the fire to materials used in the renovation, such as mesh netting, plastic sheeting and styrofoam.
It’s still unclear what caused the fire, but no matter the cause of the fire, proper netting on the buildings’ exterior would have been key to preventing the spread of fire, Jason Poon, chairman of construction NGO China Monitor, told news outlet Initium Media, adding that substandard netting could cause the fire to spread rapidly.
Another engineer told Initium Media he believes that the vast majority of mesh netting used in construction across Hong Kong is not made of fire-retardant material.
There are also often cardboard, debris and paint thinner found on the scaffolding, which along with dry weather could hasten the spread of fire, the engineer said.
One fire safety expert the BBC spoke to earlier said the bamboo scaffolding – a common part of the city’s urban landscape – also played a part in fanning the flames.
Local media reports in March said the government’s development bureau had been trying to phase out the use of bamboo because of safety concerns.
The push towards using metal instead of bamboo came after a spate of scaffolding-related deaths in Hong Kong.
Professor Jiang Liming from Hong Kong Polytechnic University also noted that the blocks at Wang Fuk Court were “relatively old” – they were built in the 1980s – so “the glass windows are not that fire resilient”.
“The modern buildings have double pane glass windows, but for this one they perhaps used just a single pane… [which makes it] very easy to be broken by the flames and the flames can then penetrate through the facade.”
Additional reporting by Jack Lau, BBC Global China Unit and Gemini Cheng, BBC Chinese in Hong Kong.
At least 13 people have been killed in a fire that has engulfed several high-rise apartment buildings in Hong Kong, authorities say, with some residents reported trapped inside.
Flames took hold in several apartment blocks of the Wang Fuk Court estate in Tai Po, a district in the northern part of the city, on Wednesday afternoon before engulfing other parts of the buildings.
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Firefighters battled the blaze into the night as thick, black smoke billowed from the 31-storey towers and orange flames lit up the sky.
Nine people were declared dead at the scene and four sent to hospital were later confirmed dead, said the Fire Services Department, which upgraded the blaze to a level five alarm – the highest level – after nightfall.
At least 15 people were injured, and local media reported that some residents were believed to be trapped inside the buildings.
Chan Derek Armstrong, deputy director of Hong Kong’s Fire Services Department, told reporters that the fire spread rapidly and authorities received numerous calls for help from residents.
“Debris and scaffolding of the affected buildings are falling down, so [that poses] additional danger to our frontline personnel,” he said, adding that the temperature inside the buildings remained very high.
“It’s quite difficult for us to enter the buildings and go upstairs to conduct firefighting and rescue operations,” he said.
“There’s nothing that can be done about the property. We can only hope that everyone, no matter old or young, can return safely,” a Tai Po resident surnamed So, 57, told the AFP news agency near the scene of the fire.
“It’s heartbreaking. We’re worried there are people trapped inside.”
Reporting from the scene of the blaze, journalist Laura Westbrook told Al Jazeera that when the fire started, it spread through the bamboo scaffolding to other blocks in the housing estate.
“As I’ve been standing here, I can smell the smoke and occasionally we hear these pops, as some of the debris falls to the ground,” Westbrook said.
Wang Fuk Court is one of many high-rise housing complexes in Hong Kong, a city that is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
Harry Cheung, 66, who has lived at Block Two in one of the complexes for more than 40 years, said he heard “a very loud noise” at around 2:45pm local time (06:45 GMT) and saw a fire erupt in a nearby block.
“I immediately went back to pack up my things,” he told the Reuters news agency. “I don’t even know how I feel right now. I’m just thinking about where I’m going to sleep tonight because I probably won’t be able to go back home.”
People gathered on a nearby overhead walkway, watching in dismay and taking pictures as smoke billowed from the buildings.
Some of the structures were clad in bamboo scaffolding, with social media posts from residents saying the units had been under renovation for around a year.
Frames of scaffolding were seen tumbling to the ground as firefighters battled the blaze, while scores of fire engines and ambulances lined the road below the development, witnesses told Reuters.
Firefighters deployed 128 fire trucks and 57 ambulances to the scene.
Authorities set up a casualty hotline and opened two temporary shelters in nearby community centres for evacuated residents. Sections of a nearby highway also were closed by the firefighting operation.
“Residents nearby are advised to stay indoors, close their doors and windows, and stay calm,” the Fire Services Department said. “Members of the public are also advised to avoid going to the area affected by the fire.”
Tai Po, located near the border with mainland China, is an established suburban district with a population of about 300,000 people. Records show the housing complex consisted of eight blocks with almost 2,000 apartments housing about 4,800 people.
Hong Kong Open – third round
-20 T McKibbin (NI); -19 MJ Maguire (US); -18 P Uihlein (US); -17 K Aphibarnrat (Tha), S Hend (Aus); -16 C Howell (US), L Oosthuizen (SA).
Selected others: -9 S Horsfield (Eng), P Reed (US); -8 T Gooch (US); -5 P Casey (Eng).
Tom McKibbin strengthened his bid to qualify for next year’s Masters and Open Championship with a third-round 65 as he continued to lead the Hong Kong Open.
After opening the tournament with a course record of 60 and carding a second-round 65, McKibbin registered one bogey and two birdies in the opening four holes of day three in Fanling.
The 22-year-old would add another birdie on the 12th before consecutive birdies on hole 16 and 17 took his total to 65 on the penultimate day.
The winner of the event will qualify for the 2026 Masters, while the highest-placed non-exempt player who makes the cut will earn a place at the 154th Open.
The Northern Ireland native is attempting to qualify for next year’s Masters for the first time, and the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale in July.
McKibbin’s lead over M.J. Maguire was reduced to one after 54 holes, with Peter Uihlein two shots behind and Kiradech Aphibarnrat and Scott Hend three off the pace.