Hong Kong: Three arrested for "gross negligence" over fire that killed dozens, with hundreds still missing

Hong Kong, November 27 : Three people have been arrested on 'suspicion of manslaughter' in relation to the deadly inferno which tore through a massive housing complex in Hong Kong, killing at least 44 people, with more than 270 others still missing, CNN reported.

The complex was under renovation and encased in bamboo scaffolding and safety netting. Three men who worked for a construction company have been arrested on charges of "gross negligence" in relation to the fire, according to CNN.

Firefighters are still trying to get parts of the fire under control more than 20 hours after it broke out.

Questions are mounting about how the fire in a skyscraper-filled city with a usually strong public safety record and construction standards could become so deadly, leaping from building to building, as per CNN.

The devastating inferno that rapidly spread across multiple high-rise apartment buildings in a Hong Kong housing complex has been described by many officials in the city as an unusual occurrence.

Fires are not unusual in the densely populated city of 7.5 million people, but the number of fatalities has remained low, especially when compared with fire deaths in the similarly sized high-rise city of New York.

But data shows that the average number of fatalities by fire in Hong Kong has risen over the past decade, as per CNN.

Data from the Hong Kong Fire Services Department shows 33 people were killed in fire incidents in 2024 - citing accidents from cooking, handling cigarette ends, matches and candles, and electrical faults as major causes.

In 2023, 31 people were killed in fire incidents in the city, a figure which at the time was the highest in 22 years, according to the research office of the Legislative Council Secretariat.

That's up from 2013, when just 12 people were killed in fire incidents, as per CNN.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor