Sixteen-year-old Serena carries a box with bottles of water to deliver to a secondary school in Tai Po, which has been converted into one of the temporary shelters for those affected by the fire.
In addition to the 900 residents of the Wang Fuk Court housing complex, where the fire broke out, authorities have ordered residents of the neighboring Kwong Fuk Estate to evacuate their homes as a precaution.
“This is my school, but today we don’t have classes because of the fire,” Serena explains to Lusa, having joined several classmates to buy and donate supplies, including cookies and instant noodles.
The school is just over two kilometers from the residential complex in the New Territories, in northern Hong Kong, which caught fire on Wednesday afternoon. On the second day, columns of smoke still rise into the sky, and the smell of smoke lingers in the air.
“Everyone knows someone who lived in Wang Fuk,” stresses Serena. “We never thought this could happen here,” she adds. But it’s not just in Tai Po, located closer to the border with the metropolis of Shenzhen than to the center of Hong Kong, that residents have mobilized to help.
An elderly woman came from Tuen Mun, 30 kilometers away, with blankets and clothing. “It’s little for those who lost everything they had,” laments resident Fong. Built in the 1980s, the social housing estate consists of eight towers with nearly 30 floors and a total of 1,984 apartments, housing around four thousand people.
According to local media, the fire has also prompted many to attempt to donate blood, exhausting appointments today at the center in Causeway Bay. The fire has caused at least 44 deaths and 68 injuries, including 16 in critical condition, according to Hong Kong’s fire department.
This is already the deadliest fire in the city’s history. In 1996, when Hong Kong was still a British colony, a fire in a commercial building in Jordan, Kowloon, resulted in 41 deaths and 81 injuries. The fire department reported that they have already been able to contact several of the 279 people who were initially listed as missing.
“The temperature is very high and there are floors where we cannot reach the people who called for help, but we will continue to try,” assured Derek Armstrong Chan, the deputy director of the fire department.
On-site, the black smoke that spread throughout the area has begun to decrease, allowing firefighters to use ladders to combat the flames, which remain active, especially on the upper floors.
Police arrested three men on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter after flammable materials left behind during maintenance work led the fire to spread rapidly through the bamboo floors. More than 700 firefighters are involved in fighting the flames, along with rescue teams and police.
Platform with Lusa
