Residents of Hong Kong’s blaze-ravaged Wang Fuk Court would still have died even if the housing estate’s fire alarms had been working during last year’s inferno, a contractor has suggested, prompting the judge overseeing a public inquiry into the disaster to question whether he was attempting to evade responsibility.
Legal counsel for a director of fire service contractor China Status Development and Engineering said on Wednesday that residents living in the first building to catch fire on November 26 would have had less than 10 minutes to escape even if they had been promptly alerted to the danger.
Lawyer Aaron Chan Chi-lung was speaking before an independent committee as interested parties delivered closing speeches on the causes and circumstances of the tragedy, which killed 168 people and left nearly 5,000 homeless.
The committee also heard suggestions from the Urban Renewal Authority and the Competition Commission on how to better combat anticompetitive conduct in the construction industry, including criminalising bid-rigging and strengthening the authority’s role in vetting tenders.
The deadliest blaze in Hong Kong since 1948 broke out on November 26 and burned for about 43 hours. All eight buildings at Wang Fuk Court were encased in bamboo scaffolding and mesh as part of a HK$336 million renovation project.
Experts previously identified the use of combustible construction material and the deactivation of fire safety systems as among the major factors contributing to the rapid spread of flames across seven of the eight residential blocks at the Tai Po subsidised housing complex.
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