An image of a Hong Kong construction worker smoking a cigarette while on bamboo scaffolding at a residential building has prompted outrage among internet users, who have drawn comparisons with the suspected cause of the city’s deadliest fire in decades. An image shared on a Facebook page called the Shau Kei Wan Sai Wan Ho Concern Group showed a worker smoking a cigarette while standing on scaffolding erected around what was identified as Tai On Building. A second worker in the same photo can be...
A fire services company never conducted any on-site inspections before submitting 85 notices to shut down the hose reel system of a housing estate hit by Hong Kong’s deadliest blaze in decades, conceding that it acted as a “rubber stamp” to handle paperwork for the renovation contractor, an evidential hearing has been told. Separate testimony from a Fire Services Department official also noted that another contractor had failed to notify authorities after discovering that Wang Fuk Court’s fire...