Death toll climbs to 128 in Hong Kong apartment blaze, 8 more arrested

Even two days after the fire began, smoke continued to drift out of the charred skeletons of the buildings from the occasional flare-up.

Hong Kong firefighters found dozens more bodies Friday in an intensive apartment-by-apartment search of a high-rise complex where a massive fire engulfed seven buildings, and authorities arrested another eight people involved in the towers’ renovation.

The death toll in one of the city’s deadliest blazes rose to 128, and many remain unaccounted for.

First responders found that some fire alarms in the complex, which housed many older people, did not sound when tested, said Andy Yeung, the director of Hong Kong Fire Services, though he did not say how many were not working or if others were.

The blaze jumped rapidly from one building to the next as bamboo scaffolding covered in netting and foam panels apparently installed by a construction company caught fire.

Authorities on Friday arrested seven men and one woman, ranging in age from 40 to 63, including scaffolding subcontractors, directors of an engineering consultant company and project managers supervising the renovation, the Independent Commission Against Corruption said in a statement.

On Friday, crews prioritized apartments from which they had received emergency calls during the blaze but were unable to reach in the hours that the fire burned out of control, Derek Armstrong Chan, a deputy director of Hong Kong Fire Services, told reporters. It took firefighters some 24 hours to bring the fire under control, and it was not fully extinguished until Friday morning.

Even two days after the fire began, smoke continued to drift out of the charred skeletons of the buildings from the occasional flare-up.

Some 200 people remain unaccounted for, Secretary for Security Chris Tang told reporters. That includes 89 bodies that have not yet been identified. Yet more bodies might be recovered, authorities said, though crews have finished a search for anyone living trapped inside.