A Hong Kong inquiry into the Tai Po fire, which killed 168 people, concludes after reviewing over 1 million files and 80 witnesses, attributing the tragedy to systemic failures including combustible material accumulation and unclear government responsibility divisions.
Hong Kong proposes new fire safety amendments, including a smoking ban at construction sites, following the deadly Wang Fuk Court inferno. The rules take effect July 17 after Legco approval.
Tung Wah Group of Hospitals offers HK$30,000 to households displaced by the Tai Po fire who transfer their flat ownership to the government for relocation assistance.
A six-member team in Hong Kong, launched by RIPHK, provides affordable corpse restoration services for disfigured bodies, aiming to allow the deceased dignified burials and console grieving families. They have handled over 10 cases, including victims of the Tai Po fire.
Hong Kong government will lift resale restrictions on replacement homes for Tai Po fire victims, offering two-year vouchers for second-hand subsidized housing and allowing immediate sale of new flats at negotiated prices.
Residents of Wang Fuk Court return home to collect belongings after November 26 fire killed 168 people and displaced nearly 5,000
For Hong Kong-based artist Apple Tong Wing-yin, Wang Fuk Court has always been more than a home address. It was a library of her life’s work. Tong, a prominent deaf illustrator and graphic designer who communicates through what she calls her “silent language” of art, kept the many canvases that spoke for her inside her flat in the Tai Po housing estate. In November last year, that library was reduced to ash in one of Hong Kong’s deadliest fires. She lost everything – her awards, her backlog of...
The South China Morning Post has taken home three honours at the International News Media Association’s 2026 Global Media Awards, with its infographic on Hong Kong’s deadly Tai Po fire winning first place for the best use of visual journalism. The awards were announced and presented in Berlin on Thursday, with the SCMP being the only Hong Kong media outlet recognised at the prestigious annual competition. This year’s awards event, which had 20 categories, drew a record 960 entries from 274 media...
The “mechanical mindset” of Hong Kong building authorities has come under scrutiny at a hearing into the city’s deadliest fire in decades, with a former inspection director conceding his team had “blindly” followed outdated guidelines when deciding not to conduct on-site audits of renovation works at the housing estate ravaged in the blaze. Rudolf Lau Fu-kwok, who was the head of the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit when the fire broke out at Wang Fuk Court last November, said on...
Government inspectors did not foresee engineering firms colluding to deceive authorities over the use of substandard renovation materials at a Hong Kong residential estate devastated in the city’s deadliest fire in decades, a public inquiry has heard. Andy Ku Siu-ping, a senior maintenance surveyor of the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit, on Wednesday blamed “systemic defects” for the body’s failure to rectify the use of flammable polyfoam boards and scaffolding mesh during a HK$336...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. All eyes are on the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit (ICU), whose officers are scheduled to testify before a judge-led panel on Wednesday about their role in Hong Kong’s Tai Po blaze. Senior maintenance surveyor Andy Ku Siu-ping will be the only witness giving live evidence in the first of three sessions of the fourth round of evidential...
Hong Kong government announces additional tax waiver for residents displaced by the deadly Tai Po fire, exempting them from final tax for 2025-26 assessment year. The November 2025 fire killed 168 people and displaced nearly 5,000 residents, making it the city's deadliest inferno since 1948.
More than 800 families displaced by the deadly Tai Po fire have expressed an interest in visiting their homes again after being allowed to return to the estate in recent weeks, a senior Hong Kong official has said. The government also expressed confidence that at least three-quarters of homeowners of Wang Chi House – the only one of Wang Fuk Court’s eight blocks left largely unscathed by last November’s fire – would accept its buy-back package by the deadline at the end of June. Deputy Chief...
An official tendering system designed to curb anti-competitive conduct is powerless to combat engineering firms colluding to manipulate Hong Kong’s lucrative building maintenance market, a public inquiry into the city’s deadliest fire in decades has heard. Testifying on the 21st day of an independent committee’s hearing, three Urban Renewal Authority (URA) officials said on Thursday that the statutory body had neither the capacity nor the resources to combat bid-rigging linked to estates’...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. An independent committee investigating the deadly blaze at Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court residential estate held its 21st day of evidential hearings on Thursday. Three witnesses from the Urban Renewal Authority gave evidence. URA case manager Matthew Chan Yat-ho, said the authority was aware of the practice of bid-rigging in the building maintenance sector, but...
A debate has emerged in the civil service over who bears responsibility for administrative failures - frontline officers or senior civil servants overseeing them. A new mechanism targets department heads for 'widespread, repetitive, systemic' failures, aiming to clarify administrative blame. Former ministers, high-ranking bureaucrats and political observers question the government's decision not to make it a legal requirement to publish full investigation results.
The Hong Kong government will include Wang Chi House, the only block spared in the deadly Wang Fuk Court blaze in Tai Po that killed 168 people in November, in its resettlement plan after 75% of homeowners indicated a preference to sell their flats to authorities. The block was originally excluded from the February proposals, but Deputy Financial Secretary Michael Wong Wai-lun had said authorities would consider acquiring flats if owners reached a high degree of consensus. The original plan involved HK$6.8 billion to buy back damaged homes.
Relatives of 10 foreign domestic helpers who died in a fire at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po last November continue to struggle with grief while dealing with scammers targeting their compensation. An advocate who visited Indonesia in January found many families still in shock, including the story of Siti Khotimah, 40, who was looking forward to reuniting with her 11-year-old daughter after six years and had prepared a birthday bracelet for her.
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. An independent committee investigating Hong Kong’s deadly Wang Fuk Court fire will scrutinise the roles of building and home affairs authorities on the 20th day of evidential hearings. Four witnesses from the Buildings Department and the Home Affairs Department are scheduled to give evidence before the judge-led panel on Monday. The inferno broke out on...
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. An independent committee investigating Hong Kong’s deadly Wang Fuk Court fire will scrutinise the roles of building and home affairs authorities on the 20th day of evidential hearings. Four witnesses from the Buildings Department and the Home Affairs Department are scheduled to give evidence before the judge-led panel on Monday. The inferno broke out on...
Survivors of the deadly Tai Po fire are returning to their damaged homes to retrieve personal items, with some facing significant physical challenges to access their former residences.
About 600 families from Hong Kong's fire-ravaged Wang Fuk Court have requested a second visit to their flats, with residents of the hardest-hit tower returning April 23-28. Wang Cheong House (81 deaths) and Wang Tai House (82 deaths) were severely damaged in the Tai Po fire that killed 168 people total. Each resident will be accompanied by police, with psychologists and social workers deployed for affected households.
This story has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Four officers from Hong Kong’s fire department are testifying on Wednesday before an independent committee investigating the Wang Fuk Court fire, as hearings enter their 17th day. The conflagration, which broke out on November 26 last year amid a major renovation, claimed 168 lives, displaced about 5,000 residents and destroyed seven of the estate’s eight...
