Politics
Hong Kong fire kills 55, hundreds missing as police blame construction firm
- Several residential high-rise towers engulfed in flames.
- Firefighters struggling to reach residents potentially trapped.
- Authorities say foam, scaffolding mesh may have contributed.
HONG KONG: A huge fire still burning in a Hong Kong apartment complex that has killed at least 55 people and left nearly 300 missing may have been caused by a “grossly negligent” construction firm using unsafe materials, police said on Thursday.
Almost a full day after the fire began, firefighters were struggling to reach residents potentially trapped on the upper floors of the Wang Fuk Court housing complex due to intense heat and thick smoke from the blaze that erupted on Wednesday afternoon.
The tightly packed complex in the northern Tai Po district has 2,000 apartments in eight blocks that are home to more than 4,600 people in a city struggling with chronic shortages of affordable housing.
“We bought in this building more than 20 years ago. All of our belongings were in this building, and now that it has all burned like this, what’s left? asked a 51-year-old resident with the surname Wan.
“There’s nothing left. What are we supposed to do?”
A woman surnamed Ng, 52, was distraught as she searched for her daughter outside a shelter.
“She and her father are still not out yet. They didn’t have water to save our building,” she sobbed, carrying her daughter’s graduation photo.
Video from the scene showed flames leaping from at least two of the 32-storey towers sheathed in green construction mesh and bamboo scaffolding.
The fire was still burning on Thursday afternoon, more than 24 hours after it started. Authorities said they had brought the blaze in four of seven blocks under control, with operations continuing in three.
Bamboo scaffolding is a mainstay of traditional Chinese architecture but has been subject to a phase-out in Hong Kong since March for safety reasons.
Three arrested
Police officers searched the housing estate’s building maintenance company on Thursday morning, seizing documents that mention Wang Fuk Court, local media reported.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We have reason to believe that the company’s responsible parties were grossly negligent, which led to this accident and caused the fire to spread uncontrollably, resulting in major casualties,” said Eileen Chung, a Hong Kong police superintendent.
Three men from the construction company, two directors and one engineering consultant, had been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter over the fire, she added.
Police said in addition to the buildings being covered with protective mesh sheets and plastic that may not meet fire standards, they discovered some windows on one unaffected building were sealed with a foam material, installed by a construction company carrying out year-long maintenance work.
A firefighter was among the 55 killed with dozens in hospital in critical condition, Hong Kong authorities said on Thursday afternoon. Around 279 people remain uncontactable.
Chung said 900 residents were spread across eight shelters.
Indonesia’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that two Indonesian migrant workers “in the domestic sector” died in the fire and two others were injured.
The death toll is now the highest in a Hong Kong fire since 1948, when 176 people were killed in a warehouse blaze.
“The priority is to extinguish the fire and rescue the residents who are trapped,” Hong Kong Hong Kong’s corruption body said it has launched an investigation into suspected corruption related to the renovation. Lee told reporters. “The second is to support the injured. The third is to support and recover. Then, we’ll launch a thorough investigation.”
Searching for relatives
Harry Cheung, 66, who has lived at Block Two in one of the complexes for more than 40 years, said he heard a loud noise at about 2:45pm (0645 GMT) and saw fire erupt in a nearby block.
“I immediately went back to pack up my things,” he said.
“I don’t even know how I feel right now. I’m just thinking about where I’m going to sleep tonight.”
Another long-time resident, a woman surnamed Chu, said she still had not been able to contact her friends who live in the next block. After staying over at a friend’s place on Wednesday night, the 70-year-old came back to see her home still burning.
“We don’t know what to do,” she said.
An online app showed missing persons reports submitted through a linked Google document that detailed residents of individual towers and rooms.
It includes descriptions like “Mother-in-law in her 70s, missing” or “one boy and one girl” or “Rooftop: 33-year-old male.”
One description simply says “27th floor, room 1: He is dead.” Reuters could not independently verify the information on the app.
The fire has prompted comparisons to the Grenfell Tower inferno that killed 72 people in London in 2017. That fire was blamed on firms fitting the exterior with flammable cladding, as well as failings by the government and the construction industry.
“Our hearts go out to all those affected by the horrific fire in Hong Kong,” the Grenfell United survivors’ group said on social media. “To the families, friends and communities, we stand with you. You are not alone.”
China’s Xi urges ‘all-out’ effort against fire
Many residents took to social media to criticise what they saw as negligence and cost-cutting as a cause of the fire.
One video showed several construction workers smoking on the bamboo scaffolding surrounding one of the complex’s blocks during the renovation process.
From the mainland, China’s President Xi Jinping urged an “all-out effort” to extinguish the fire and to minimise casualties and losses, China’s state broadcaster CCTV said.
Hong Kong’s Transport Department said that a number of roads would remain closed in the area on Thursday morning and 39 bus routes have been diverted, while nearby schools have been closed.
Wang Fuk Court is one of many high-rise housing complexes in Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Tai Po, located near the border with mainland China, is an established suburban district with some 300,000 residents.
Occupied since 1983, the complex is under the government’s subsidised home ownership scheme, according to property agency websites. According to online posts, it has been undergoing renovations for a year at a cost of HK$330 million ($42.43 million), with each unit paying between HK$160,000 and HK$180,000.
Hong Kong’s corruption body said it has launched an investigation into suspected corruption related to the renovation.
- Freeze applies to 19 countries already under US travel restrictions.
- Lakanwal, ex-CIA-backed fighter, charged with first-degree murder.
- Officials blame weak Joe Biden-era airlift vetting for shooter’s entry.
US President Donald Trump said Sunday his administration intends to maintain a pause on asylum decisions for “a long time” after an Afghan national allegedly shot two National Guard members near the White House, killing one of them.
When asked to specify how long it would last, Trump said he had “no time limit” in mind for the measure, which the Department of Homeland Security says is linked to a list of 19 countries already facing US travel restrictions.
“We don’t want those people,” Trump continued. “You know why we don’t want them? Because many have been no good, and they shouldn’t be in our country.”
The Trump administration issued the pause in the aftermath of the shooting in Washington on November 26, which left 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom dead and another guard critically wounded.
A 29-year-old Afghan national, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder in connection with the incident.
Lakanwal had been part of a CIA-backed “partner force” fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, and entered the United States as part of a resettlement program following the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Lakanwal had been granted asylum in April 2025, under the Trump administration, but officials have blamed what they called lax vetting by the government of Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, for his admission to US soil during the Afghan airlift.
Trump wrote after the shooting that he planned to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the US system to fully recover.”
Asked which nationalities would be affected, the Department of Homeland Security pointed AFP to a list of 19 countries — including Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran and Myanmar — which since June have all faced travel restrictions to the United States.
Radicalised in US
Authorities believe the Lakanwal was not radicalised until after he came to the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Sunday.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and ABC’s “This Week,” Noem said authorities think the alleged shooter was already living in Washington state when he became radicalised. Investigators are seeking more information from family members and others, Noem said.
Noem’s comments suggest Lakanwal, who was part of a CIA-backed unit in Afghanistan, may have embraced extremism after arriving in the United States.
“We believe he was radicalised since he’s been here in this country,” Noem told NBC News. “We do believe it was through connections in his home community and state, and we’re going to continue to talk to those who interacted with him, who were his family members.”
Noem said officials have received “some participation” so far from people who knew Lakanwal and warned the US would pursue anyone connected to the shooting.
“Anyone who has the information on this needs to know that we will be coming after you, and we will bring you to justice,” Noem said.
After Wednesday’s attack, the Trump administration took steps to clamp down on some legal immigration, including a freeze on the processing of all asylum applications.
Noem said on Sunday, immigration officials would consider deporting people with active asylum cases if it was warranted.
“We are going to go through every single person that has a pending asylum claim,” she said.
- Rubio says progress has been made on peace deal with Russia.
- Umerov leads Ukraine’s delegation after Yermak’s resignation.
- Kushner, Witkoff also present for Florida round of negotiations.
US and Ukrainian officials held what both sides called productive talks on Sunday about a peace deal with Russia, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressing optimism about progress despite challenges in ending the more than 3-year-long war.
“We continue to be realistic about how difficult this is, but optimistic, particularly given the fact that as we’ve made progress, I think there is a shared vision here that this is not just about ending the war … it is about securing Ukraine’s future, a future that we hope will be more prosperous than it’s ever been,” Rubio said in Florida, where the talks were being held.
Rubio said the aim is to create a pathway that leaves Ukraine sovereign and independent. The discussions follow roughly two weeks of negotiations that began with a US blueprint for peace. Critics said the plan initially favoured Russia, which started the Ukraine conflict with a 2022 invasion.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were also present representing the US side. Witkoff is expected to meet Russian counterparts later this week.
“There are a lot of moving parts, and obviously there’s another party involved here that will have to be a part of the equation, and that will continue later this week, when Mr Witkoff travels to Moscow,” Rubio said.
Trump has expressed frustration at not being able to end the war. He pledged as a presidential candidate to do so in one day and has said he was surprised it has been so hard, given what he calls a strong relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has largely resisted concessions to stop the fighting.
Trump’s team has pressured Ukraine to make significant concessions itself, including giving up territory to Russia.
The talks shifted on Sunday with a change in leadership from the Ukrainian side. A new chief negotiator, national security council secretary Rustem Umerov, led the talks for Kyiv after the resignation on Friday of previous team leader Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, amid a corruption scandal at home.
As the meeting began, Umerov thanked the United States and its officials for their support. “US is hearing us, US is supporting us, US is walking beside us,” Umerov said in English.
After the meeting, he declared the talks productive. “We discussed all the important matters that are important for Ukraine, for the Ukrainian people, and the US was super supportive,” Umerov said.
The Sunday talks took place near Miami at a private club, Shell Bay, developed by Witkoff’s real estate business.
Zelenskiy had said he expected the results from previous meetings in Geneva would be “hammered out” on Sunday. In Geneva, Ukraine presented a counteroffer to proposals laid out by US Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll to leaders in Kyiv some two weeks ago.
Ukraine’s leadership, facing a domestic political crisis fueled by a probe into major graft in the energy sector, is seeking to push back on Moscow-friendly terms as Russian forces grind forward along the front lines of the war.
Last week, Zelenskiy warned Ukrainians, who are weathering widespread blackouts from Russian air strikes on the energy system, that his country was at its most difficult moment yet, but pledged not to make a bad deal.
“As a weatherman would say, there’s the inherent difficulty in forecasting because the atmosphere is a chaotic system where small changes can lead to large outcomes,” Kyiv’s first deputy foreign minister, Sergiy Kyslytsya, also part of the delegation, wrote on X from Miami on Sunday.
Iran and Turkiye have agreed to begin constructing a new joint rail link to serve as a strategic gateway between Asia and Europe, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday.
The planned route, known in Iran as the Marand-Cheshmeh Soraya railway transit line and running towards Turkiye’s Aralik border region, will cover around 200 kilometres (120 miles).
It will cost roughly $1.6 billion and is expected to take three to four years to complete, Iranian authorities have said.
Earlier this month, Iran’s transport minister Farzaneh Sadegh said the rail line would transform the southern section of what was once the Silk Road into an “all-rail corridor ensuring the continuity of the network between China and Europe”.
It would also ensure “fast and cheap transport of all types of cargo with minimal stops”, she added.
At a joint press conference on Saturday with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, Araghchi said “emphasis was placed on the need to remove barriers to trade and investment between the two countries”.
“The two countries also stressed the importance of the rail link […] in the region and expressed hope that the construction of this line can start as soon as possible,” he added.
The ancient Silk Road was a vast system of trade routes that for centuries linked East Asia to the Middle East and Europe, facilitating the flow of goods, culture and knowledge across continents.
In 2013, China announced the construction of the “Belt and Road Initiative”, officially known as the “New Silk Road”— a project that aims to build maritime, road, and rail infrastructure to boost global trade.
Iran has been seeking to expand infrastructure and trade with neighbouring countries as part of efforts to revitalise an economy strained by decades of international sanctions.
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