Hong Kong apartment fire tests Beijing-backed rule as anger mounts
With elections looming, the fire undercuts the government’s insistence it can cater to people’s needs without giving them a greater say in who rules the city.
The fire that blazed through a cramped Hong Kong apartment complex and killed at least 128 people this week has become a major test for the city’s Beijing-backed leaders, who have tried to win back public trust after mass protests by promising better lives for everyday Hong Kongers.
Hong Kong authorities have said that the flames spread unusually quickly across the eight towers of government-subsidized housing. Dozens of WangFuk Court’s 4,600 residents were trapped inside the 31-story buildings as the inferno burned for 43 hours before being largely doused by 10:18 a.m. local time Friday.
Most people who died did so on the scene, Chris Tang, the city’s secretary for security, said in a news conference Friday afternoon. There were 89 unidentified bodies and around 110 other people who were unaccounted for, he added.
That anger may undermine efforts by the government to prove it can be responsive to people’s needs without giving locals a greater say in who rules Hong Kong.
“What makes it such a tragedy is that this disaster could have been mitigated or even prevented,” said Lokman Tsui, a research fellow at the University of Toronto who is writing a book about autocratic rule in Hong Kong, his hometown.
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Residents told local media that the alarms in their building did not go off. Others accused the renovation contractor of ignoring complaints about fire hazards and posted photos of cigarette butts from workers who allegedly were smoking on-site.
Elderly tenants — nearly 40 percent of residents in the complex were 65 or older, a 2021 census found — may have been unable to escape thanks to the delayed warning, their neighbors said.
“It should be a wake-up call,” Tsui said. “Hong Kong is starting to show signs of failed governance.”
In October, the Hong Kong Labor Department responded to a concerned resident with the assessment that the risk of safety nets around the scaffolding catching fire was “relatively low,” according to text of the exchange posted on Facebook.
Residents had “raised alarm bells” with multiple government departments in early 2024 about the building, and the departments “all said things were fine,” said Michael Mo, a former Hong Kong district councillor who is now a doctoral candidate at Newcastle University in Britain. “It’s typical, careless bureaucracy,” he said.
Hong Kong’s Chief Executive’s Office and departments of fire, labor and information services did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Residents rest near burned buildings at Wang Fuk Court, a residential estate in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong's New Territories, on Friday. (Chan Long Hei/AP)
China put an end to massive pro-democracy protests with sweeping national security laws in 2020 that limited candidates for elections in the former British colony to “patriots” approved by Beijing.
It’s possible that local elections slated for Dec. 7 will be postponed to avoid the tragedy influencing turnout and voter choice, especially in the Tai Po constituency, said Sonny Lo, a political commentator based in Hong Kong.
According to Beijing, the city’s new political order was meant to not just restore order in the Asian financial hub, but also to tackle public discontent over economic inequality, expensive housing and ineffective government.
Lack of access to affordable housing has long been a deep source of dissatisfaction in Hong Kong. Space is limited in the mountainous territory in part because a handful of major property developers bought up land and prioritized high-end condos to maximize profit.
