Almost all life-saving fire safety measures had failed on the day of the blaze because of human errors, public hearings were told.
Almost all life-saving fire safety measures had failed on the day of the blaze because of human errors, public hearings were told. Smoke rises after a fire broke out at Wang Fuk Court, a residential estate in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong's New Territories, on Nov 26 2025.
Add CNA as a trusted source to help Google better understand and surface our content in search results. HONG KONG: Hong Kong charged seven people and two companies on Wednesday over the world's deadliest residential building fire in decades, which killed 168 people at a public housing estate last year.
The massive blaze, which engulfed seven of the eight high-rise apartment blocks at the Wang Fuk Court estate in November, prompted a months-long investigation in to the cause. Authorities"today charged seven individuals and two companies with 25 counts of offences, including manslaughter, conspiracy to defraud, 'money laundering', attempting to pervert the course of public justice, and tax evasion", the government said in a statement Wednesday.
The seven people charged included directors and inspectors of a consultancy firm involved in the estate's renovation, as well as the main contractor involved in the project, according to the statement. Substandard construction safety netting and cigarette butts were focal points of the probe into the causes and rapid spread of the world's deadliest residential building fire since 1980.
Fire alarm systems for seven of eight blocks had also been deactivated, which"greatly shortened the time for residents to evacuate", leading counsel Victor Dawes had told an independent committee conducting the probe. Required fire-retardant nets were not used in many places, and the windows were covered by foam boards, which may have contributed to the spread of fire into the flats, the panel heard earlier this year. Subscribe to our Chief Editor’s Week in Review
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