Hong Kong's high-rise apartment fire leaves 44 killed, 279 missing, 3 arrested on suspicion of manslaughter

Hong Kong’s most devastating fire in decades burned relentlessly through the night, claiming at least 44 lives and leaving 279 residents unaccounted for as rescue crews continued pulling survivors from scorched high-rises into Thursday morning. It is Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades, recalling the 1996 Kowloon inferno that claimed 41 lives.

The blaze ignited Wednesday afternoon in the Wang Fuk Court housing complex in Tai Po, a New Territories suburb, and quickly escalated into a sprawling emergency. Three men have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter as investigators probe how the fire spread so violently, reported AP.

By dawn, the inferno was still not fully contained. Flames had ripped through seven of the estate’s eight towers, forcing hundreds to flee as smoke and heat burst from upper floors. Forty of the victims were declared dead at the scene, while at least 62 others were hospitalized with burns and severe smoke inhalation.

Police revealed that highly flammable Styrofoam panels were discovered outside lift-lobby windows on every floor of the only tower left untouched - materials believed to have been installed by a construction contractor and now central to the investigation.

“We have reason to believe that those in charge of the construction company were grossly negligent,” said Eileen Chung, as quoted by AP, a senior superintendent of police. The three men arrested, aged 52 to 68, are the directors and an engineering consultant of the firm.

By Thursday morning, officials said firefighters were finally bringing the blaze at four towers under control, though the struggle had stretched through a bruising night. The fire began on the external scaffolding of a 32-story block before slipping inside the structure and leaping to neighboring buildings, helped along by sharp winds that turned bamboo scaffolds and construction netting into fast-burning ladders of flame.

According to AP, more than 200 fire vehicles and around 100 ambulances crowded the scene as crews fought searing heat that hampered rescue efforts. The eight-building housing complex-home to nearly 4,800 residents, many of them elderly - had been under major renovation and was wrapped in temporary structures that fed the fire’s advance. A towering plume of smoke unfurled above the district, while about 900 residents were hurried to temporary shelters.

Hundreds of firefighters, police officers, and paramedics were deployed, with ladder trucks pouring water from above in an attempt to break the fire’s momentum. The blaze, which started mid-afternoon, was raised to a level-5 alarm, the city’s highest, after dusk as conditions remained perilous.