News from across Asia

[Northern Light]

The death toll as at 2:50am is confirmed to be at least 55 from the above fire.

Three men, apparently construction executives overseeing work on the renovation of the above buildings have been arrested and charged with suspicion of manslaughter for what the police called gross negligence. .

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

And each time these towers goes up in flames it is due to inappropriate materials used in the building envelope/exterior (tarps, styrofoam window covers).

AoD

 

[Admiral Beez]

A profound tragedy is unfolding in Hong Kong at this hour as 7 residential towers are ablaze.

At this hour, 36 confirmed dead, 29 in hospital, but 279 uncontactable. It seems likely this will be worse, possible much so than the Grenfell disaster in London some years ago.

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/hong-kong-tai-po-buildings-fire-11-26-25

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Source: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/wor...re-apartments-wang-fuk-court-tai-po-district/

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Credit: Bertha Wang/CNN Source: https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/bwp08536.jpg?c=original&q=w_1280,c_fill/f_avif

What a disaster. My sympathies to those affected/victims.

This is akin to St. Jamestown (all of it) going up in flames at once. Even if every ladder truck in Toronto was sent it wouldn't be enough.

 

[wopchop]

Death now is being reported 75+ with 300+ unaccounted for ... Awful.

What we know about the Hong Kong apartment fires

The death toll continues to rise and hundreds are missing, as firefighters struggle to put out the fire.

www.bbc.com

On the surface this looks like Grenfel but it is a actually much different. For Grenfel, the design of the building and material chosen led to the fire being disastrous. In this case it looks like the material used for window protection and enclosing the scaffolding during the renovation is the cause. The latter generally has much less oversight.

Lessons from Grenfel affected my industry significantly, so I am hopeful that this has the same impact.