The fire in Tai Po claimed a death toll of at least 151

Less than a week after a housing estate inferno killed 151 people, Hong Kong’s Labour Department is already taking a lenient approach in its citywide investigation into fire safety at 61 bamboo scaffolding worksites.

The government’s Task Force today announced Labour Department was letting 53 sites off with “written warnings” after serious violations were found in a mass inspection of 61 bamboo-scaffold construction sites. Those written warnings come just hours after the Chief Secretary Eric Chan Kwok-ki condemned “utterly shameful” fire fraud at the Wang Fuk estate and promised to “pursue this matter to the fullest extent of the law”.

Labour Department said it would prosecute just two cases out of 55 found, and submit a further 13 notices to improve, suggesting a total of 68 fire safety issues found at the 61 sites.

Records show Labour Department took a similarly lenient view at the Wang Fuk estate before the horrific tragedy, with 16 inspection visits recorded since July last year yet those visits only yielding written warnings and “improvement notices” on fire safety, as well as three prosecutions for unsafe working at height.

On November 20, six days before the blaze broke out, Labour Department issued yet another written warning to the contractors “reminding it of the importance of fire safety” after repeated complaints about smoking of workers on the scaffolding.

Labour Department’s leniency in post-tragedy inspections contradict its own statements from 27 November, where the department claimed it was “deeply concerned” by the tragedy and would “strictly enforce the law if any violations” are discovered.

But contradictions and confusion appear to be rife in the government’s handling of fire safety issues. Even while the blaze still burned, the government insisted the scaffold netting in Wang Fuk estate had met fire control standards, with multiple government inspections apparently finding it within the required fire-retardant specification.

However, firefighters on the ground and citizens watching the three-day blaze online raised many questions on this, given multiple videos showing the netting catching fire and burning extremely vigorously at the genesis of the fire.

Yesterday, in a press conference, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung admitted the government had been duped. He said a fresh collection of “hard to reach” samples from the fire site found a third of them did not meet standards.

“We observed that many readily available samples had a higher probability of meeting standards, while samples from hard-to-reach areas were much more likely to be non-compliant,” he said.

The Chief Secretary Eric Chan Kwok-ki also admitted the government had been widely deceived in its Wang Fuk inspections.

According to the ICAC investigation, the Wang Fuk estate contractor purchased 2,300 rolls of substandard fire-retardant netting at HK$54 per roll following Typhoon Ragasa which had damaged the netting in September.

After an earlier fire tore through Chinachem Building in Central in October the government had mandated citywide random inspections of bamboo netting. At that point, according to the ICAC, the contractors purchased an additional 115 rolls of fire-retardant safety netting from the same local supplier at HK$100 per roll.

Security Secretary Chris Tang said said the firms involved had tricked the government for those inspections, using the fire-resistant netting in only the base of the scaffolds and in easy to reach locations, meaning both Buildings Department and Labour Department were repeatedly fooled.

Tang said the financial motives for using fake or substandard materials were small – the substandard netting saved the contractor only around HK$94,300 (after their purchase of the “good” netting to fool the government) – and called the crimes “completely egregious”.

“This case involves manslaughter being used to gain a petty advantage,” he said at a press conference yesterday.

Neither Tang or Chan took responsibility for the poor quality of the inspections. But poor respect for fire safety  appears to be the norm across the city.

This reporter also witnessed a potential “bait and switch” taking place at a major renovation site in Yau Ma Tei: old netting had been removed on Friday – after the government announced all bamboo netting would be inspected citywide – and replaced with fresh new green netting. But, around 20 hours later, that new netting was removed and taken to a new location. It is suspected the fresh netting was left in place long enough to pass inspection.

At this site, discarded scaffold netting was seen on Saturday, with fresh netting applied to the whole building. A day later, workers were seen removing the new netting. The building is now without any netting.

This reporter also found a forged safety certificate at another nearby bamboo shed, with a post-dated safety inspection report and multiple white-out corrections made without countersignature.

Similar shenanigans are suspected at many buildings, with skip-loads of old netting discarded and many bamboo structures now naked in almost every district. Sources in local media have suggested there is not enough legitimate fire-retardant netting to cover all buildings under the Buildings Department’s mass inspection of all netting sheds.

Meanwhile a HK01 investigation has found at least two Fire Retardant Netting safety certifications to be fake: bamboo contractors for two buildings – Yik Court in Cheung Sha Wan and Fung Wah estate in Chai Wan – showed their material as being provided by Shandong Chengdu Chemical Fiber Rope and Net Company, with the material listed as being tested by the “National Labour Protection Products Quality Supervision and Inspection Centre (Beijing)”. A source from the testing body told HK01 the laboratory had changed its name to “National Labour Production Products Quality Inspection and Testing Centre (Beijing)” (emphasis added) in 2019 and any certificates bearing the old name in 2025 were fake.

Smoking: citywide disobedience ignored

A smoker leans against a bamboo scaffold shut down by Buildings Department on fire safety questions.

The smoking issue is another area where the government has faced criticism, with officials claiming the issue is difficult to solve.

Hong Kong had an incredibly high smoking rate amongst the construction sector – around 75% measured in 2022 and likely higher today with many more imported workers from the mainland.

Yet despite constantly reminding the construction sector that smoking is strictly prohibited on bamboo sheds, the government has long overlooked mass disobedience on the issue, to fatal and tragic consequences.

An ashtray next to the scaffolding at China Travel Building in Central

Indeed, even yesterday, smokers still gathered underneath a large Central shed site shutdown by Buildings Department a few days ago due to questions on the fire-retardant quality of its netting. Signs warn of “flammable material”, yet smokers, some of whom were general public but some who were accessing closed areas and were likely employees, shrugged off the danger.

One worker said the netting was safe and Buildings Department was simply raising a query. A smoker from the office tower became agitated when reminded of the fire. “Everybody smokes here,” he said, claiming the sign did not say “no smoking” but “no cigarette butts to be discarded here”.

Fire alarms “malfunction” in eight out of eight blocks

Reporters have also questioned failed fire alarms: according to Chris Tang, the fire alarms in all eight Wang Fuk estate blocks “malfunctioned” at the time of the fire, with many residents reporting they only found out about the fire from neighbours or seeing flames outside their windows.

Buildings Department is responsible for fire alarms and fire doors but has a notoriously overweight backlog of Mandatory Building Inspection Orders. After the horrific fire in New Lucky House in 2024, in which five residents perished, it emerged not only had New Lucky House owners mocked fire safety orders for the previous sixteen years but also that Buildings Department had 175,000 outstanding fire safety notices unchecked citywide.

The department has since changed its data reporting on outstanding notices, making information difficult to come by. However, checks and sources reveal at least 20,000 residential properties in the city are below fire code.

The Wang Fuk estate fire, which has so far claimed  a confirmed 151 lives, is one of the worst tragedies in Hong Kong’s history. The government’s support fund has now reached HK$1.6 billion, with HK$1.3 billion of that coming as donations from the general public and companies in and outside Hong Kong.

2,415 survivors have been homed in youth hostels, hotels or transitional housing units. The government’s online donation platform (www.taipodonation.hk) is taking registrations for daily essential supplies.