Death Toll Rises to 128 in Hong Kong High-Rise Fire

Hope of finding survivors has dwindled, with many residents of the Wang Fuk Court towers still unaccounted for. Eight more people were arrested Friday over the blaze.Outside the Wang Fuk Court complex in Hong Kong on Friday.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesDeath Toll Rises to 128 in Hong Kong High-Rise FireHope of finding survivors has dwindled, with many residents of the Wang Fuk Court towers still unaccounted for. Eight more people were arrested Friday over the blaze.Outside the Wang Fuk Court complex in Hong Kong on Friday.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesSKIP Nov. 28, 2025The death toll from Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades rose to 128 on Friday, as authorities struggled to identify victims and firefighters extinguished the last embers at the still smoldering high-rise apartment complex.With hope of finding survivors fading, rescue operations have ceased, even though many residents of the densely packed Wang Fuk Court apartment towers remain missing. Chris Tang, Hong Kong’s secretary of security, said that about 200 people were unaccounted for as more bodies are expected to be recovered. More than 70 people were hospitalized, some in critical condition.Mr. Tang said rescuers had pulled out more than 100 bodies from the complex, but some charred sets of remains were still inside the site. Only 39 victims have been identified, he said.With many of the bodies badly burned, police said they were planning to use DNA testing to help expedite the process. Temperatures also remain too high to begin a thorough investigation of the buildings; Joe Chow, the commissioner of police, said some parts of the apartment complex are still as hot as 390 degrees Fahrenheit.Firefighters were still dousing parts of the complex with water on Friday to prevent flames from reigniting. Smoke could be seen wafting from the charred buildings, which were crisscrossed with what remained of the bamboo scaffolding in various states of disrepair.Family members seeking missing loved ones gathered at a nearby community center where they were shown photographs of victims, many of whom had been identified. Other people stood outside the housing complex waiting anxiously for any news.The massive blaze started on Wednesday afternoon at the complex in the northern district of Tai Po. One of the 32-story buildings appeared to catch fire first before the flames jumped to six other towers. Mr. Tang said there were early indications that the blaze was sparked by flammable construction netting that had been used to shroud the buildings, which were undergoing renovation work at the time.The fire then ignited combustible polystyrene foam that appeared to have been used to cover windows to protect them from damage. The foam caused the windows to overheat, breaking the glass and allowing the fire to spread, Mr. Tang said.Mr. Tang described the multitude of challenges that firefighters faced in trying to respond to the inferno. He said flaming bamboo poles rained down onto the ground and blocked access for firefighters and their trucks. The heat was so intense in some apartment units that flames reignited even after firefighters had extinguished a blaze.“Firefighters had to go through each floor and each unit to put out fires and conduct rescue operations,” he added.ImageFlowers were left outside a fire station in Hong Kong on Friday in memory of a firefighter killed in the blaze at Wang Fuk Court.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesThe disaster has stunned residents of Hong Kong, where high-rise living and the sight of construction sites covered in green netting and bamboo are part of everyday life. Many people have responded by raising relief funds and volunteering to help distribute donated goods to people left homeless by the fire.The government is likely to come under increasing pressure to explain why the fire could not have been prevented or if the response could have been better.Andy Yeung, director of fire services, defended the fire department’s response to the tragedy against criticism online that the agency didn’t deploy enough air units. Mr. Yeung said helicopters would have been ineffective because they would have dropped water from too high while threatening to fan the flames with their rotary blades.He also said that there was not enough space at the apartment complex to use fire trucks with taller ladders. Mr. Yeung said fire alarms at all eight high-rise towers were not working properly at the time of the blaze.Among the victims was a 37-year-old firefighter, Ho Wai-ho, a nine-year veteran who collapsed at the scene of the fire and later died at a hospital, the government said.The city’s anti-corruption commission said Friday it had arrested eight more people over the fire, including scaffolding subcontractors and consultants involved with renovations at the complex.On Thursday, the authorities arrested two directors and a consultant linked to a construction company that installed the construction materials, saying they were being investigated for manslaughter and gross negligence. The authorities said they were inspecting 11 other private residential building projects where the company had been doing work.The disaster comes at a politically sensitive time for the local government, which was handpicked by China but is determined to show it is up to the task of running the city. Hong Kong is still semiautonomous, despite the freedoms lost when China imposed a national security law in 2020. Next month, it will hold elections — devoid of opposition parties — for only the second time since then.The government has said in a statement that it would cancel “nonessential public activities” to devote time and resources to helping the victims of the fire and their families. It also said it would inspect all sites in the city that are currently undergoing external wall construction or renovations involving scaffolding and protective nets.Authorities also had to address the immediate needs of those left homeless by the fire. A community center near the blackened towers has been converted into a shelter where more than 100 mattresses were strewed across the floor. Parents dug through bins of children’s clothing neatly organized by size, and makeshift signs explained how to access emergency cash provided by the government.Cheryl Wong, a 7-year-old resident of Wang Fuk Estate, sat barefoot on the bleachers with an aunt who was trying to keep her entertained with sketch pads, origami and a Pokémon activity book. Cheryl said her mother had left the shelter to find her a pair of shoes. She said she has been struggling to sleep since arriving.“I don’t like sleeping on the floor,” she said. “My pillow kept rolling off the mattress.”About 500 residents are currently dispersed across nine temporary housing shelters. The government said it would provide a subsidy of 10,000 Hong Kong dollars, or $1,284, to affected households and set up a separate $38 million fund “to assist residents and support all relevant work.”The government also said it might accelerate the phasing out of bamboo scaffolding in favor of fire-resistant metal scaffolding. So far, the authorities have not indicated that bamboo played a major role in the rapid spread of the fire on Wednesday.The fire was the deadliest in Hong Kong since 1948, when nearly 200 people were killed in a blaze at a warehouse. That fire took place when the city was still a British colony.David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: Grim Task of Pulling Victims From Rubble Of High-Rise Inferno. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | SubscribeSKIP