Hong Kong.- The fire declared in seven buildings of a residential complex in Hong Kong has already left 83 dead, 76 injured, including eleven firefighters, and at least 279 missing, according to the latest figures released this Thursday by the emergency services.
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The latest information available on the residents trapped inside the buildings indicated that there were 62 people in this situation. Furthermore, firefighters confirmed the rescue of a new survivor, a man located on the stairs of the 16th floor of one of the affected buildings. The fire, recorded on Wednesday afternoon, has devastated seven of the eight 31-story blocks that make up the Wang Fuk Court complex, in the Tai Po district, and has become the worst urban fire in Hong Kong in three decades. The fire started in one of the buildings and spread extremely quickly, fueled by the bamboo scaffolding covered with safety nets, waterproof tarpaulins, and expanded polystyrene sheets used in the exterior renovation works that began in July 2024. The authorities consider the speed of propagation “unusual” and have confirmed the presence of highly flammable expanded polystyrene materials within the blocks. By the early hours of the morning, the fires in the seven buildings were already under control and only flames remained in three of them, after almost 10 hours of continuous operations. A few hours later, the Chief Executive, John Lee, assured that the fires in all the affected buildings were “totally under control”. The Fire Department has deployed 1,250 personnel, 304 emergency vehicles, 26 specialized teams, and four drones for aerial surveillance and continues to advance floor by floor in rescue and cooling operations. The supervisors warned of the risk of partial collapse of the scaffolding, from which fragments have already fallen, forcing personnel to take extreme caution.
