On October 19, Chinachem Tower, a commercial building in Central, caught fire while undergoing repairs. The flames spread quickly along the scaffolding nets, emitting large clouds of smoke visible across Victoria Harbour. 

Four people were injured, and firefighters extinguished the blaze within five hours. The news was quickly forgotten the next day.

However, for Chris, a Tai Po resident speaking to HKFP under a pseudonym, it was a warning sign. 

At the time, his apartment building, Wang Fuk Court, was also under renovation. The HK$330 million large-scale project aimed to repair all eight buildings of the decades-old residential estate in Tai Po. 

The work started in July 2024. And soon, all buildings were covered with bamboo scaffolding and construction nets. Construction workers used foam boards to cover the windows to protect them from debris as they removed the old tiles. 

Wang Fuk Court – home to 1,984 families – became a dusty construction site.

Before the Chinachem Tower fire, Chris was already worried about the renovation at the housing estate. Despite being a member, he found it difficult to rely on the management committee of the Wang Fuk Court owners’ corporation to oversee the construction work. He tried to seek the government’s help instead.

In early October, Chris filed a report on 1823, a government platform for handling public complaints, after noticing many scaffolding nets had been torn in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Ragasa in late September. He expressed concern about the quality of the nets.

A civil servant from the Independent Checking Unit (ICU) of the Housing Department replied to Chris, saying they would make an inspection. 

On October 23, days after the Central fire, Chris contacted the ICU again. Citing the blaze, he said he was concerned about the safety and quality of the scaffolding nets, urging authorities to inspect Wang Fuk Court as soon as possible. 

In the string of emails seen by HKFP, the ICU got back to Chris on October 31. “The safety of residents and workers has always been our group’s top priority,” the email read. “The inspection found that some of the external wall protective facilities still have deficiencies… Regarding the aforementioned issues, our group has instructed the contractor to complete the repairs as soon as possible.”

The response did not put Chris at ease, as the ICU did not mention whether it had inspected the quality of the scaffolding nets. “And if there were deficiencies, why did they not order the contractor to cease the operation until everything was fixed?” he told HKFP.

Chris was not the only one. Other residents said that, about a year before the deadly blaze, they filed reports with various authorities about suspected fire hazards – from scaffolding nets and foam boards to construction workers smoking on site – but their efforts went nowhere. They all spoke to HKFP on condition that their real names not be used.  

Nearly a month after the ICU’s response to Chris, in the afternoon of November 26, a fatal fire broke out at Wang Fuk Court. The inferno claimed 168 lives and left around 4,600 residents homeless. It was the deadliest fire in Hong Kong since 1948. 

According to an initial government investigation, the blaze started in the scaffolding nets covering Wang Cheong House, one of the eight residential towers, and quickly engulfed the foam boards. From there, it spread to six other buildings. 

As the foam boards caught fire, windows shattered under the intense heat. The fire rapidly spread indoors, leaving many residents little time to escape. Many were unaware of the blaze because the fire alarms in all eight buildings did not work. 

In early December, days after the fire, the government admitted that samples of scaffolding nets collected from the scene were not fire-retardant. It had since ordered the removal of all scaffolding nets in all renovation projects across Hong Kong, forcing work to cease.

“I think the government should bear the greatest responsibility. However, I dare not speak up,” Chris told HKFP in Cantonese, pointing out the sentencing of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai and prominent democrats in landmark national security trials in recent years. 

He refused to use his real name, citing Hong Kong’s current political climate. 

‘Do we still have the ICAC?‘

Three months after the blaze, another resident, Brian, feels deeply disappointed that no government department or official has been held accountable. 

His 90-year-old mother and two domestic workers died in their Wang Fuk Court home. The flat, purchased by Brian’s brother and managed by Brian, was intended as a comfortable residence for their nonagenarian mother. 

“We didn’t want to send her to an elderly care home, where you have no freedom. Therefore, we hired two helpers to take care of her at home,” Brian said in Cantonese. 

Born in the 1950s, Brian is knowledgeable about construction procedures and budgeting, thanks to his over four decades of experience working in the renovation sector. Like Chris, he had smelled trouble from the Wang Fuk Court renovation project since the beginning. 

To this day, he still keeps a large bundle of tender documents and contracts for the project, filled with colourful notes marking the items he deemed questionable. Before the fire, he had suspected corruption, which he believed led to corner-cutting and safety risks. 

The renovation of the 42-year-old Wang Fuk Court was mandatory. Under the Mandatory Building Inspection Scheme, introduced in 2012, private buildings aged 30 years or above are selected on a risk basis for mandatory checks and repairs. Most owners’ corporations, lacking the expertise to monitor such large-scale projects, usually hire consultants.  

In 2016, when the ICU informed Wang Fuk Court of mandatory checks and repairs, the owners’ corporation hired Will Power Architects through tendering to carry out the prescribed inspection.

In 2021, the owners’ corporation hired Will Power again as a consultant to oversee the repair work. 

In January 2024, some Wang Fuk Court homeowners and authorised representatives voted to hire the Prestige Construction & Engineering Company as the contractor for the renovation. 

Of the 57 companies that submitted renders, Will Power gave Prestige the highest rating. However, unbeknownst to many residents, Prestige had been convicted multiple times over construction safety issues in the past few years, local media reported.

William, another Wang Fuk Court flat owner, told HKFP that the then management committee of the owners’ corporation was not transparent. Some residents had long suspected the committee of rigging the bidding process, in cahoots with the consultant and contractor. 

In early 2024, without consultation, the committee demanded that each flat pay HK$180,000 within six months for the renovation project. In September that year, the management committee was ousted and replaced by a group of young homeowners. 

William said information became a bit more transparent after the new committee took over. 

He met Brian in a regular meeting hosted by the management committee to update residents on the repair project. The pair soon became close friends, bonding over their efforts to dig into details of the renovation project. 

“We found many unreasonable charges on the contract. For example, [the contractor] charged us a fee to repair something, and then charged another fee to check it after the repair. That’s ridiculous,” Brian said.

Brian and William noticed that Prestige frequently changed construction materials “without good reason” and alleged that it was involved in shady operations, such as refusing to submit receipts. 

The pair and other residents raised their concerns at the owners’ corporation meetings. To their surprise, Will Power, which was supposed to oversee the project on behalf of homeowners, always “defended” the contractor, William said. 

In December 2024, the consultant issued a letter to the Wang Fuk Court owners’ corporation, saying that some flat owners who questioned the repair project contract “viciously smeared” the company. 

At the end of 2024, Brian went to the office of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) twice to report suspected corruption involving the consultant and contractor. However, he was told that the anti-graft watchdog would not open a case file on his complaint. 

“The staff told me that it was a business dispute and was not related to the ICAC,” Brian recalled. 

In April 2025, Brian went to the ICAC office again, this time accompanied by William. 

“We told the ICAC we suspected corruption behind the renovation project, but the staff who received us said there was no evidence to prove pay-for-play,” William said in Cantonese. 

“I was baffled at the time. Wasn’t it the job of ICAC to find evidence?”

Separately, Chris also went to the ICAC office to lodge a complaint. He got a similar response to those given to Brian and William. 

On November 27, one day after the fire broke out, the ICAC announced that it would establish a task force to “launch a full investigation” into Wang Fuk Court’s renovation project, citing “immense public interest involved.” 

On November 28, it arrested eight people, including four from the consultant Will Power, three from a scaffolding contractor, and one middleman. The following day, it arrested three people from the contractor Prestige. 

William told HKFP he felt baffled. “Why did [the ICAC] not take our reports at the time, but it immediately arrested people two days after the incident?” 

“If the ICAC had started investigating [the project] earlier, the disaster might never have happened,” Brian said. “Actually, do we still have the ICAC or not?” 

Flagging risks to different authorities 

In response to HKFP’s enquiry, the ICAC wrote on February 13 that it had established a task force to probe the Wang Fuk Court case and that “it is not appropriate” to make any comments, citing ongoing investigations. 

Brian and William said the anti-graft watchdog is just one of the many authorities that should be held liable for the deadly fire. 

According to a Ming Pao report in mid-December, some residents contacted the Labour Department in September 2024 to ask whether the scaffolding nets used in the Wang Fuk Court renovation were fire-retardant. The department replied: “The chances of fire breaking out on scaffolding nets are low.” 

In November 2024, after construction workers sealed the estate’s windows with foam boards, Brian grew worried.

“Many residents were concerned that the practice was not safe,” he recalled. “We raised questions during a meeting, and the [new] owners’ corporation responded at the next meeting, saying that they had received a video from the construction company, which showed that the foam boards were fire-retardant.”  

Brian was not fully convinced. He called the Fire Services Department to ask about any regulations regarding the use of foam boards. “Two weeks later, the department got back to me, saying there were no relevant regulations and it was not illegal [for the construction company to seal windows with foam boards].”

HKFP asked the Fire Services Department what reports or enquiries it had received from Wang Fuk Court residents before the fire and how they were handled. The department responded on February 13 that it would not make any comment due to an ongoing investigation by an independent committee. 

In September 2024, Brian called the Labour Department to report that some construction workers were smoking near the scaffolding nets and not wearing safety belts while working at height on the scaffolding. 

“The Labour Department said they inspected it… But the problem was not resolved. I noticed workers still smoking as of October 2025,” Brian said. He pointed out that Will Power failed to oversee the safety of the construction project as well.

The Labour Department previously told HKFP that it inspected Wang Fuk Court 16 times between July 2024 and November 2025. It admitted receiving enquiries from residents about the quality of the scaffolding nets in September 2024 and, upon checking the nets’ certificates, concluded they met the government’s standard. 

Since mandatory checks and repairs of private buildings were imposed 14 years ago, construction consultants and contractors have developed various hidden bid-rigging tactics, HKFP reported in January. Consultants can nominate their “friendly” contractors and both parties work together, sometimes with the owners’ corporations, to make “unreasonably high profits” from renovation projects. 

In 2016, the Urban Renewal Authority (URA) rolled out the platform “Smart Tender,” an initiative to combat bid rigging by anonymising tender procedures. The URA also arranged independent advisers to assist flat owners in managing renovation projects.  

However, Brian and William considered that the URA’s support and supervision were insufficient. 

In early 2025, they joined other residents and representatives of the new owners’ corporation managing committee in visiting the URA to report problems with the repair project contract and consultant misconduct.

“However, the URA got back to the owners’ corporation after this meeting, saying that we should deal with the consultant regarding any renovation problems,” William said. “That’s ridiculous – we were reporting that the consultant had failed in its job!”

“The government and the URA did no follow-up after imposing the order [of mandatory repair], even though it was such a large-scale project,” said William. “It was all left to homeowners.”

‘Not pure accident’

After Super Typhoon Ragasa, Wang Fuk Court residents were worried not only about the quality of the damaged scaffolding nets but also their replacements.

“The new nets were also green, but the colour was a bit different from the old ones. This again sparked residents’ concerns about the quality and safety of the nets,” William told HKFP. 

Meanwhile, William, Chris, and some other residents also noticed that construction workers had dismantled the smoke barrier windows in the fire escape stairwells to access the scaffolding. 

In the afternoon of November 26, all the potential risks that residents had flagged became a reality.

On that ill-fated day, Chris and his wife went to work. Although they felt lucky to have survived, they were devastated that their nine-year-old poodle died in the fire. 

William, a retiree, was at home with his wife. Having seen the fire at Wang Cheong House, the neighbouring building, he went downstairs to have a look while his wife stayed home.

William never imagined the fire would spread so rapidly. His wife never made it out. 

“I don’t believe it was a pure accident. This is a disaster of the century caused by the neglect of different people and departments,” he said. “If the government had done good oversight, the inferno would never have happened.

“I feel angry. Since when did Hong Kong become like this?” William added. “I want to seek justice for my wife, for the 168 people [who died in the fire].”

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee set up an independent committee to probe the fire in December, with the investigation expected to be completed in nine months. Lee said it would be “unfair” to hold any official accountable before the committee finishes its work.

Regina Ip, former lawmaker and chair of the New People’s Party, said on NowTV on February 1 that it might be too late to hold officials accountable as Lee’s term would end in July 2027.

“You said it would take nine months [to probe the fire]… What’s the point of taking the responsibility when there’s not much time left in the term?” Ip said in Cantonese. 

In response to HKFP’s enquiry, police said on Friday they had so far arrested 34 people, aged 27 to 77, in connection with the Wang Fuk Court fire, with offences ranging from fraud to manslaughter. Six have been charged, though police did not disclose the specific charges.

National security police declined to disclose the number of sedition arrests in relation to the blaze, only saying three people had been charged under Article 23, the local national security law.

Brian said he would focus his efforts on holding the consultant and the contractor accountable, believing little could be done to hold any officials or departments responsible. 

He mentioned Miles Kwan, a student who was reportedly arrested for “seditious intention” after launching an online petition calling for government accountability over the Tai Po fire. The student was later expelled by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

“Now, anything you do, they [the authorities] would say it’s seditious,” Brian said. “Be careful, otherwise they will arrest you too.”