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Hong Kong authorities rushed connected Thursday (December 4, 2025) to region mesh netting connected each buildings undergoing renovation crossed the metropolis aft the worldly was blamed for fanning a blaze past week that has killed astatine slightest 159 people.
The Government precocious connected Wednesday (December 3, 2025) ordered the contiguous removal of scaffolding nets connected each nationalist and backstage residential buildings by Saturday (November 29, 2025), to "protect nationalist information and enactment residents and businesses' minds astatine ease".
The determination comes arsenic authorities analyse the origin of the city's deadliest occurrence successful decades, having pointed to the mesh for fuelling an inferno that engulfed 7 high-rise flat blocks astatine the Wang Fuk Court analyzable connected November 26.
Renovation enactment crossed the fiscal hub volition efficaciously grind to a standstill for an undefined play of clip arsenic inspectors verify the netting meets information standards.
At a lodging property successful Sha Tin, astir 15 minutes thrust from the Wang Fuk complex, workers began dismantling protective netting connected Thursday (December 4, 2025) morning.
C.K. Lau, an 82 twelvemonth aged retiree surviving astatine the Sha Tin lodging estate, said removing the nets reduced the accidental of a akin benignant of incident.
"The residents consciousness amended if they (the Government) hold to instrumentality it down. So they agreed to instrumentality it down wrong this week."
Police person arrested a full of 21 radical successful their probe into the fire.
Among them are 15 from assorted operation companies suspected of manslaughter, including 2 directors and an engineering advisor from Prestige Construction, the main contractor astatine Wang Fuk Court.
A further six from the occurrence work installation contractor person been arrested connected suspicion of fraud.
Authorities said substandard integrative mesh and insulation foam utilized during renovation enactment astatine the doomed property apt fuelled the 40-hour inferno, portion occurrence alarms were besides not operating properly.
Residents of Wang Fuk Court, location to 4,600 people, were told by authorities past twelvemonth they faced "relatively debased occurrence risks" aft they complained astir occurrence hazards posed by the renovations, the city's Labour Department said.
In effect to calls for transparency and accountability, metropolis person John Lee has besides ordered a judge-led committee to analyse the occurrence and reappraisal oversight of gathering renovations.
Contractors to carnivore outgo of removal
More than 200 backstage buildings, on with much than 10 nationalist lodging and Government buildings, volition person to region the netting, Development Secretary Bernadette Linn said connected Wednesday (December 3), adding that contractors indispensable carnivore the costs.
Hong Kong's gathering section aims to contented a caller codification of signifier adjacent week, requiring each scaffold nett materials to beryllium sampled connected site. The nets volition lone beryllium installed aft being certified by designated laboratories arsenic compliant with applicable requirements.
Authorities are besides investigating suspected mendacious information documents for netting from a Shandong, China-based shaper utilized astatine 2 renovation sites successful the city.
Prestige, the main contractor astatine Wang Fuk Court, was progressive successful renovations enactment astatine 1 of those sites, according to authorities and notices astatine the tract seen by Reuters.
Prestige did not respond to calls and letters near astatine their shuttered offices.
Of the 159 bodies recovered since the Wang Fuk Court blaze, authorities accidental 140 person been identified - 91 females and 49 males, aged betwixt 1 and 97 years.
Foreign home helpers from Indonesia and the Philippines are among 31 radical inactive missing.
More than 2,900 residents person been enactment successful impermanent accommodation, the Government said, with 1,152 staying successful hostels, camps oregon edifice rooms. Another 1,765 residents person moved into transitional lodging units.
