This story by Oiwan Lam originally appeared on Global Voices on December 2, 2025.
The deadly fire in Taipo, which broke out on November 26, has claimed at least 156 lives and caused 79 injuries, with about 30 people remaining missing as of December 2.
The city was shocked, helpless, and desperate last Wednesday, as it watched on social media as flames swallowed the residential complex, where more than 1,800 households lived, within an hour. However, in the aftermath, frustration and anger have taken over, as it has become clear that the disaster was man-made. Yet, the authorities blame the bamboo scaffolding and clamp down on voices calling for an independent investigation into the fire. A university student was arrested on suspicion of sedition on November 29 after launching a petition calling for accountability from government officials over the fire.
In the afternoon of November 26, I received a phone call from my sister asking me to help locate my uncle, who lives in one of the 1,829 apartments in Wang Fuk Court, where the deadly inferno broke out. Fortunately, he and his family were not at home, and his apartment is on the only block among the eight buildings in the Wang Fuk Court residential complex unaffected by the fire.
When I reached him, he was watching the fire at a distance helplessly, praying that his neighbours could escape and that the fire could be contained soon. However, the 31-storey high-rises are too tall for the water cannons to reach the upper levels, and the heat was too intense for the firefighters to climb all those stairs. One firefighter died, and 12 were injured in the rescue.
On social media platforms, many individuals and news outlets were live-streaming the fire. Like others, I was shocked to see that, within a few minutes, a small flame that started on the lower level of the building at 14:51 spread like wildfire, climbing up the green plastic safety netting to the upper level. Then, burning plastic and ashes followed the wind and flew over to the neighbouring buildings. In 10 minutes, the fire alarm jumped to level three; in 40 minutes, to level four; and by 18:22, to level five, the highest cacastrophy level. The previous level five fire occurred in 1996, killing 41 people.
As it spread so quickly, many residents inside the buildings were unaware of the fire. Moreover, the fire alarms in the buildings reportedly did not function, and many windows were blocked by foam plastic boards installed by the construction team for their repair work. By the time they were aware of the fire, it was too late for them to escape. Instead, they had to find ways to block the smoke from entering their apartment to buy time for their rescue. However, as most trapped residents were either elderly retirees or non-school-age kids, they were not experts in self-rescue. Not to mention that it took about 15 hours to keep the fire under control and 43 hours to extinguish the fire.
Families and friends of the entrapped ones were waiting outside the fire scene in despair, as they could do nothing to save their loved ones.
While watching social media updates about the fire, scandals about the Wang Fuk Court repair project resurfaced, and, like most of my fellow Hongkongers, I believe the fire is a man-made disaster. Under the Mandatory Building Inspection Scheme, introduced in 2012, owners of buildings aged 30 or older are required to appoint a registered inspector (RI) to inspect, supervise and prescribe repair works. Upon the owners’ approval, they must appoint a contractor through open bidding for the repair project under the supervision of the RI. The repaired old buildings must undergo a similar inspection every 10 years.
Wang Fuk Court, built in 1983, was issued a mandatory building inspection order by the Buildings Department in 2016, and the Incorporated Owners (IO) appointed Will Power Architects as the RI. During the open bidding, the IO received 57 applications. Eventually, the most expensive bid, HKD 330 million (approximately USD 42.4 million), submitted by Prestige Construction & Engineering Company, which had a dozen violation records involving industrial safety, was included on the shortlist. Despite opposition from some owners, the IO had gained a majority of votes from Wang Fuk Court owners to appoint Prestige Construction in January 2024. Only after the owners were asked to pay for their shares of the cost did they realise that they had been misled by the IO and RI into approving the project, and they brought the alleged bid-rigging scandal to various media outlets. Yet, the government authorities did not follow up on the complaints, and the homeowners failed to reverse the decision.
Since construction began in July 2024, residents of the complex had been filing complaints with various government authorities, raising questions about the flame-retardant quality of the safety netting. Although the Labour Department visited the construction sites 16 times and issued six warnings and three prosecution tickets regarding industrial safety to the contractor over the past 18 months, it has not followed up on the quality of the safety netting, as the company presented a certificate attesting to the net’s flame-retardant quality. And no government authority has spotted the usage of highly flammable foam boards in the repairs.
Only after the deadly fire did the city’s anti-corruption authority form a task force to investigate bid-rigging and, thus far, arrest a dozen individuals working for the RI and the construction company on suspicion of manslaughter and other offences.
However, soon after the fire, both international media outlets and the Hong Kong government pointed the finger at bamboo scaffolding for fueling the fire, and advocated replacing it with metal scaffolding. While I am not a bamboo scaffolding fan, I believe the narrative has misled people into perceiving that the fire was caused by an “outdated” industrial practice rather than the more than a decade-long corruptive malpractice under the Mandatory Building Inspection Scheme, the lack of an effective monitoring system over the repairs and the inaction of government authorities in reaction to citizens’ complaints.
There were about 27,000 privately owned buildings aged 30 or older in 2024, and the number will continue to grow. This implies that the building repair sector will expand, and the money involved will also be snowballing.
We used to have an informal monitoring mechanism for this mandatory repair sector before Beijing rewrote the city’s electoral rules in 2021 to filter out pro-democracy legislative and district councillors. Back then, political parties seeking grassroots support had overseen the open bidding process and helped file complaints with government authorities. They reached out to different media outlets to unveil embedded interests and industrial malpractices. However, as all opposition parties have been wiped out since 2023, grassroots grievances have lost a significant channel for voicing them.
In the case of Wang Fuk Court, in addition to the extremely high price of about HKD 180,000 (approximately USD 23,000) per household for the repair work, the work had been slow, and their apartments were wrapped in a greenish plastic safety net for 18 months, with windows sealed with flammable foam boards before the fire broke out. Even though they were aware of the potential fire safety issue and had tried to bring their situation to public attention, they were ignored.
What happened in Wang Fuk Court is not a single incident. Similar mandatory repair scandals and industrial malpractices have been found in other projects, including the HKD370 million repair work in Fotan Sui Wo Court. For more than two years, whistleblowers have been filing complaints with various government authorities about the allegedly flammable safety netting and foam boards used by Fulam Construction. Likewise, their complaints have been ignored. Only after the Taipo fire and a local television station’s follow-up investigation into a viral video showing the flammability of the safety netting in Sui Wo Court did the Buildings Department suspend repair work at 30 construction sites undertaken by Prestige Construction and Fulam Construction.
I live in an old residential district and am currently surrounded by buildings undergoing repairs under the government’s Mandatory Inspection Scheme. Next year, my apartment will be wrapped up in green safety netting for several months, too. I was terrified when the city’s security head, Chris Tang, told the press, soon after the fire was extinguished on November 28, that the safety netting found in Wang Fuk Court met the flame-retardant requirements, even as we watched the flame climb up the high-rises through the netting. If such netting meets the standard, it means that most Hongkongers are surrounded by the same materials, but they lack the legal means to stop the contractors from using them. As legislator Michael Tien wrote on his Facebook page: “If that is our standard, we need to raise it.”
Then, on December 1, Tang admitted that the samples they had collected had been tampered with by the contractor.
It is now clear that the bamboo did not cause the fire to spread, and replacing it will not stop such bid rigging or malpractice. In fact, many are worried that it may worsen the situation because shifting only to metal scaffolding will squeeze small construction companies, which offer economic repair packages for lower-middle-class homeowners, out of the construction market as the storage and installation of metal scaffolding requires more capital investment and logistical resources, including warehouse and lifting machines.
What we need is an independent investigation into the malpractice surrounding project bidding under the mandatory building inspection scheme, the failure of the current monitoring system, the inaction of government authorities upon receiving complaints, and the certification and quality check system for construction materials. However, on November 29, the city’s security police arrested a university student who called for a joint petition surrounding four demands, which include providing continuous support to victims of the fire, an independent investigation into the fire, reviewing the monitoring system of the repair work, and calling for accountability for government officials’ negligence. He was under arrest on suspicion of sedition.
At the same time, investigative reports probing into the bid-rigging issue published by the Chinese state-funded Ta Kung Pao were withdrawn. Instead, commentaries accusing anti-China forces of spreading rumours, dividing the society and creating chaos out of the fire emerged on various pro-Beijing outlets.
The Hong Kong government has indeed been very effective in helping victims check into temporary housing, hand out cash for urgent needs, and set up a fund that has already raised HKD 1,600 million (approximately USD 205.5 million) by December 1 to meet the future needs of the fire victims. However, money can’t prevent future disasters; we need a more reflective and accountable government.
(SY)
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