Claim that fire alarms would not have saved lives in Tai Po blaze draws rebuke

Residents of Hong Kong’s blaze-ravaged Wang Fuk Court would still have died even if the housing estate’s fire alarms had been working during last year’s inferno, a contractor has suggested, prompting the judge overseeing a public inquiry into the disaster to question whether he was attempting to evade responsibility.Legal counsel for a director of fire service contractor China Status Development and Engineering said on Wednesday that residents living in the first building to catch fire on November 26 would have had less than 10 minutes to escape even if they had been promptly alerted to the danger.Lawyer Aaron Chan Chi-lung was speaking before an independent committee as interested parties delivered closing speeches on the causes and circumstances of the tragedy, which killed 168 people and left nearly 5,000 homeless.