Hong Kong fire draws public fury, and tests Beijing’s grip on city

The death toll rose to 159 on Wednesday after police finished searching the seven towers that were engulfed in flames that took 40 hours to extinguish, authorities said.

The fire has sparked grief, anger and fear in this densely populated city of 7.5 million people, which returned to China after British colonial rule in 1997.

“This case, I think, goes to the very heart of Hong Kong,” said John Burns, professor emeritus of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong. “And one of the reasons is that we all live in buildings like that. This could happen to any of us.”

Authorities have been conducting inspections at construction sites around the city and said Wednesday that mesh netting would be removed from 200 buildings by Saturday.

For Beijing, the fire risks becoming “a threat to national security, a threat to stability, and that’s why they took the steps they took,” Burns said.

The Hong Kong government issued its own warning against unnamed “anti-China and destabilizing forces” on Wednesday, accusing them of spreading disinformation and “distributing seditious pamphlets.”

A spokesperson said “any malicious defamation” aimed at the government or relief workers would not be tolerated, “especially criminal acts aimed at inciting hatred against the government.”

The Wang Fuk court housed around 4,600 people, around a third of whom were over 65 years old. Those killed ranged in age from 1 to 97, authorities said.

Residents of the one tower that was not hit were briefly allowed to return to their homes Wednesday and Thursday to pack up their belongings while the investigation continues.

John Lee, Hong Kong’s top leader, said Tuesday that an independent committee headed by a judge would investigate the cause of the fire and that those responsible would be held accountable “regardless of who they are.”

He said the investigation would examine “issues of corruption, bid rigging and irregular tendering in building maintenance projects”, as well as the installation and operation of fire safety systems, and the results would be made public.

“We will reform the entire building renovation system to ensure that such things do not happen again,” Lee told reporters.

A separate investigation is already underway by the city’s anti-corruption body.

So far, fifteen people from various construction companies have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. This week, police also arrested six people from a registered fire service contractor on suspicion of fraud.

Lee did not address reports that at least three people had been arrested by national security police since the weekend for their criticism of the government, but he said he would not tolerate any crime that “exploited the tragedy.”

Kenneth Cheung, a former district councilor who was arrested after publicly criticizing the response to the fires, said in a social media post on Monday that he had been released on bail pending an investigation. He said in another article on Tuesday that he could not say more “because there is silence regarding the national security matter.”

The other two people reportedly arrested for alleged sedition were Miles Kwan, a university student who created an online petition calling for an independent investigation into the fire, and an unidentified volunteer who was distributing supplies to fire victims. Kwan was seen leaving a police station on Monday.

Hong Kong police did not comment directly when asked about the reported sedition arrests.

A year of complaints

Residents of Wang Fuk Court had complained for more than a year that the renovations posed fire risks, but their concerns were dismissed.

The Labor Ministry said it has conducted 16 investigations into the estate since renovations began in July 2024. During that time, the ministry has issued six notices and initiated three prosecutions, it said in a statement, which did not provide details.

During the last inspection on Nov. 20, less than a week before the fire, the department again warned the contractor to take appropriate fire prevention measures, while saying it found no problems warranting action.

Hong Kong observed a three-day official mourning period, from Saturday to Monday, with 18 locations set up across the city for mourners to sign condolence books.

In Tai Po, the air around Wang Fuk Court still smelled of burning on Monday, five days after the fire. Despite hundreds of people gathered around a de facto memorial, a silence hung in the air, broken only by the chirping of birds as the sun set.

Mourners, many with tears in their eyes, gently laid white lilies in a circle in a grassy area that was once a seating area for residents of the estate.

“There is this spirit of helping and protecting each other,” said Hebbe Chan, a 20-year-old university student who came to pay her respects.

“It was only after I arrived at the scene today that I started to feel a kind of sadness, that this fire had really taken so much away,” she said.