Destroyed homes, cancelled events: Hong Kong counts economic cost of Tai Po fire

Hong Kong continues to count the economic losses from the city’s deadliest fire in decades, with the disaster having destroyed 1,736 flats at Tai Po’s Wang Fuk Court, turned residents’ valuables into ashes and triggered the cancellation of banquets and mega-events.

Economists and industry leaders estimate the losses could run into billions of Hong Kong dollars, with the total market value of the flats alone amounting to an estimated HK$5 billion (US$642.3 million).

Last month’s blaze killed at least 160 people, including a firefighter, and left nearly 5,000 people homeless.

While the consequences were still unfolding, some experts noted there were few cases elsewhere in the world in recent decades comparable to the Tai Po fire in terms of circumstance and scale.

Others cited the Grenfell Tower blaze in west London in 2017 that claimed 72 lives and incurred £1.2 billion in financial losses, and a fire at a high-rise residential building in Shanghai in 2010 that led to 58 deaths and losses of at least 500 million yuan.

“The responsibility of the fire has not yet been clarified,” Eric Tso Tak-ming, chief vice-president of mReferral Mortgage Brokerage Services, said of the Tai Po disaster. “The compensation process has not yet started, so who should be responsible for paying the compensation and how much are all unknown factors.”