HONG KONG — Hong Kong firefighters were making a final push to try and find victims and any possible survivors from the city’s worst fire in memory, going apartment-to-apartment in the high-rise complex in an exhaustive search.
At least 128 people were known to have died in the blaze that started Wednesday at Wang Fuk Court in the suburban Tai Po district. Dozens more were injured, and about 900 of the 4,800 residents were evacuated to temporary shelters.
Seven of the eight 32-story towers in the building complex were engulfed in flames after construction materials and bamboo scaffolding spread the fire. Officials said extreme heat was hampering rescue efforts.
The fire was deadlier than a 1996 blaze in a commercial building in Kowloon that killed 41 people. A warehouse fire in 1948 killed 176 people, according to the South China Morning Post.
Here’s what to know about the fire:
Officials are investigating why construction materials, netting and bamboo scaffolding being used in renovations to the exterior of the buildings caught fire.
In the meantime, authorities arrested three people, the directors and an engineering consultant of a construction company, on suspicion of manslaughter. Police did not name the company, but they searched the office of Prestige Construction & Engineering Co., which The Associated Press confirmed was in charge of the renovations. Phone calls to the company’s offices