Images published on social media show the lightning speed with which a fire devastated an apartment complex in Hong Kong on Wednesday (26), killing at least 128 people and leaving almost 300 missing.
This is probably the one since World War II.
Previously, the Garley Building fire in 1996, which killed 41 people, was widely described as the worst peacetime fire in the history of .
Watch the video:
The video shows scaffolding being thrown from buildings, wrapped in green netting used to protect the building being renovated, as flames grow and smoke fills several buildings in Wang Fuk Court.
The eight blocks of the densely populated complex house 2,000 apartments, home to more than 4,600 people in the financial center that is struggling to overcome a chronic shortage of affordable housing.
The police stated that the cause may have been a construction company that used unsafe materials to carry out renovations on the group of buildings.
The procedure used by the company was considered by authorities to be.
What caused the fire?
Firefighters received the first call about the fire just before 3pm local time (4am Brasília) on Wednesday (28), according to the Hong Kong Fire Department.
The fire started at Wang Cheong House, a 32-story residential building that is part of the eight blocks that make up the Wang Fuk Court complex, which was under renovation, said Derek Armstrong Chan, deputy director of operations at the Fire Department.
When firefighters arrived at the first building, the scaffolding and protective nets were already on fire.
Professionals began to fight the flames, which quickly spread from building to building, transforming a fire in a single block of apartments into multiple simultaneous fires on several floors.
At least seven of the complex’s eight apartment blocks were affected by the fire, forcing those who managed to escape the flames to take shelter in temporary accommodation.
Still, many residents were trapped in the apartments, with firefighters unable to reach them due to high temperatures inside the buildings and falling debris.
