Hong Kong fire: death toll rises to 128, with 200 still missing

BarcelonaThe number of deaths in the fire that occurred this Wednesday in the Wang Fuk Court residential complex The death toll in Hong Kong has risen to 128, while some 200 people are still missing, according to official sources on Friday. The Secretary of State for Security of the semi-autonomous region, Chris Tang Ping-keung, told the media that 80 bodies have not yet been identified and did not rule out the possibility that rescue teams will find more.

The government official, who also raised the number of injured to 79, confirmed that the cause of the rapid spread of the flames It was the use of highly flammable polystyrene sheets in the windows. This also caused the glass to shatter and the fire to spread inside the buildings, which were covered by bamboo scaffolding for renovation work on the complex. "There were massive fires both inside and outside, which caused this disaster," Tang said.

Meanwhile, the Fire Department director, Andy Yeung, revealed in the same statement that the fire alarms did not function properly, as numerous neighbors had reported. He assured that all of this will have legal consequences. So far, authorities have arrested five people for their alleged responsibility in the tragedy—two of them this Friday—belonging to the construction company in charge of the complex's renovation and an architectural firm that advised on the project. The fire, which had active hotspots until Thursday, started last Wednesday in tower 8 of the residential complex, made up of eight 31-story buildings, constructed in 1984 and inhabited by some 4,600 people, many of them elderly.