The death toll from Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in decades has risen to 160 after another resident of Wang Fuk Court housing estate in Tai Po was confirmed as a fatality, the city’s police chief has said. Six people are still missing.
Commissioner of Police Joe Chow Yat-ming also said on Tuesday that the next stage of recovery work would involve removing bamboo scaffolding to search for bodies at the estate, which had been undergoing extensive renovations when disaster struck.
He also revealed that a piece of bone had been found on the ground after piles of scaffolding were removed, but it had yet to be determined if it was human or animal.
The death toll from the November 26 blaze increased from 159 to 160 after a body discovered earlier was found to be the remains of two people – an elderly resident and her domestic helper – with the help of DNA samples from both families, Chow said.
The identities of 120 dead had been confirmed, with the remaining 40 pending DNA verification, he said.
“As we are verifying other remains to determine whether they are human or animal, we will see if we need to adjust the death toll,” Chow warned.
The confirmation of the latest fatality came after a forensic pathologist took various samples from a victim found earlier, Chow said.
Chief Superintendent Karen Tsang Shuk-yin, officer in charge of the casualty inquiry unit, said six people were still listed as missing.
She said that of the 31 people previously reported as missing, the circumstances of 24 had been resolved. Twelve were found to be safe, including two outside Hong Kong.
Another four were already dead while eight others were confirmed as having been killed in the blaze, she said. The remaining case involved the latest confirmed victim.
Tsang said some missing cases had taken longer to investigate. In one, a person reported an elderly woman as missing, giving the name she was known by. “But the elderly woman’s real name is totally different from the one reported,” Tsang said.
Another case involved a woman in her nineties looking for her friend, whom she said was aged over 100 and lived in Wang Fuk Court. “But her friend died 11 years ago,” Tsang said.
All eight residential buildings at Wang Fuk Court – a government-subsidised Home Ownership Scheme estate built in the 1980s – had been covered in bamboo scaffolding and mesh nets during the renovations, while polystyrene foam boards were used to cover windows.
The blaze, which burned for about 43 hours, quickly tore through seven of the eight high-rise buildings, leaving nearly 5,000 people homeless.
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han had said on Sunday that 13 households remained uncontactable after the inferno.
Chow said on Tuesday that different departments were working together to confirm the identities of household members and update the figures.
“At this moment, at least for the missing persons report, we only have six remaining on the list,” he said.
The police chief added that the force had contacted 162 family members for DNA samples, with forensic labs working to speed up testing so the results would be available in around a week rather than the usual two to three weeks.
