Dozens of dead, murder, corruption: it is the most tragic fire ever in Hong Kong

Residential area where four thousand people live started to burn. Bamboo structures and spongy materials contributed.

At least 55 people died no deadliest fire in Hong Kong historyaccording to a new report released by authorities in the Chinese region.

At a press conference, a spokesperson for the Hong Kong fire department said that 51 people were found dead at the scene, while four others were pronounced dead at the hospital. There are almost 300 missing.

The fire took place in social neighborhood Wang Fuk Court, built in 80s, which is composed of eight towers with close to 30 floors and a total of 1,984 apartmentswhere they lived around 4,000 people. Early this morning in Portugal, the fires that broke out in seven towers, three were still to be controlled.

The police arrested three men on suspicion of voluntary homicideafter the discovery of flammable materials left during maintenance work which caused the fire to spread quickly through the floors with bamboo structures – which did not respect safety rules.

The local press indicates that unsafe scaffolding, e spongy materials in building windows (which burn quickly and release toxic smoke), have made buildings highly flammable.

“We believe that the responsible construction company was highly negligent, which led to this accident and the fire spreading uncontrollably”, commented Eileen Chung, superintendent of Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Government announced the launch of a anti-corruption investigation, after the deadliest fire in the city’s history.

Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption has set up “a working group to launch a full investigation into possible corruption in the major Wang Fuk Court renovation project in Tai Po.”

In a statement, the commission justified the decision with “the immense public interest involved” in the fire.

Meanwhile, the fire department said it had already managed to contact several of the 279 people who were initially listed as missing.

The leader of the Hong Kong Government admitted that elections for the local parliament, scheduled for December 7, could be postponed. The election campaign was suspended.

This is already the deadliest fire of the city’s history. In 1996, when Hong Kong was still a British colony, a fire in a commercial building in Jordan, in the Kowloon area, caused 41 deaths and 81 injuries.