Tai Po fire: Hong Kong Red Cross raises HK$530 million for affected residents

The Hong Kong Red Cross has raised HK$530 million (US$67.8 million) to provide emergency and long-term support to residents affected by the deadly Tai Po fire, with the NGO expecting all its relief and recovery efforts to be finished in five years.Speaking more than three months after the blaze at Wang Fuk Court that killed 168 people and displaced nearly 5,000 more, the group said on Thursday that it had ended its donation drive.It also pledged to spend no more than 5 per cent of the funds on administrative fees.Charity CEO Bonnie So Yuen-han, who is set to retire this month after several decades at the NGO, said the city had entered an “early recovery” stage.“We expected that it would take five years for all the emergency relief and long-term recovery, after assessing the scale of the disaster and the amount of resources devoted to supporting victims,” she said.“Although the scale of the impact is large and many are affected, we saw many parties, including residents, enterprises and the government, coming forward to help.”