Forty people are dead and 279 are still missing after a massive fire spread throughout a high-rise apartment complex in Hong Kong on Wednesday.The CBC reports that the blaze erupted in Wang Fuk Court, a government-subsidized housing complex in the northern Tai Po district that consists of eight residential blocks and roughly 2,000 apartments, housing an estimated 4,800 residents.Hong Kong’s Fire Services Department (HKFSD) told Reuters it does not yet know how many people may still be trapped inside..Emergency crews received the first call at 2:51 p.m. local time, reporting flames inside one of the 31-storey towers.Firefighters arrived within five minutes, but the blaze was already spreading between buildings.By 6:22 p.m., authorities had raised the incident to a No. 5 alarm — the highest fire alert in the city with more than 700 firefighters battling intense heat and dangerous conditions inside the towers.One of those firefighters, identified as 37-year-old Ho Wai-ho, has been killed in the fire. Hong Kong Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung expressed her condolences to Ho's family and to the families of other victims of the fire in an official statement. HKFSD Deputy Director Derek Armstrong Chan told reporters that the extreme temperatures had made the firefight treacherous..“The temperature inside the buildings concerned is very high, so it’s quite difficult for us to enter the building and go upstairs to conduct firefighting and rescue operations,” he said.Some of the buildings appear to have been covered in bamboo scaffolding, raising questions about whether it contributed to the fire’s rapid spread. Hong Kong remains one of the few places where bamboo is still widely used for construction scaffolding.Earlier this year, the Hong Kong government announced plans to begin phasing it out for safety reasons, requiring half of all public construction projects to switch to metal frames..Tai Po District Councillor Mui Siu-fung told BBC Chinese that all eight blocks of Wang Fuk Court were currently undergoing major repairs.Seven of these blocks have now been affected by the fire, with external scaffolding severely damaged. Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee, the head of government for the special administrative region, convened an emergency meeting, and the government has issued a statement saying, “All government departments are fully assisting residents affected by the fire, prioritizing the safety and well-being of the public.”As of 1:30 a.m., Thursday morning, local time, Lee said the fire was "coming under control."Investigators have not yet identified the cause of the fire.The fire is Hong Kong's worst since 41 people died in a commercial building in the heart of Kowloon in November 1996.Reuters has reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping has extended his condolences to the fire victims' families and called for an "all-out effort" to extinguish the fire and to minimize casualties.
