The Hong Kong fire toll rose to 55 as firefighters continued efforts to contain the massive fire.
According to Independent, as of Thursday, November 27, Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in more than six decades has claimed at least 55 lives, while 279 people are still missing.
A massive fire broke out in a high-rise housing complex in Tai Po district on Wednesday and quickly spread across the seven blocks of the building.
The officials said that the blaze in the four blocks was under control and firefighters are continuously working to put out the flames in the remaining three blocks.
Rescue teams have started searching for the survivors in the apartments of four of the towers where fire has been extinguished.
Notably, around 76 people are hospitalised, with 15 in critical condition and 28 in serious condition.
A fire department official in a news conference on Thursday afternoon asserted that they have not “ruled out rescuing more injured people,” despite continuous challenges, but they cannot predict survival chances of the residents still trapped in the building.
“We have not given until now. It is difficult but going well at the moment,” the official added.
Deputy director of fire services Wong Ka-wing said, “Temperatures at the fire scene are extremely high, so we push with a strategy of floor-by-floor,” adding that the workers at the scene have to take extra care due to the risk of burnt bamboo scaffolding collapsing on them.
Furthermore, this is the deadliest fire in Hong Kong since the August 1962 blaze in Sham Shui Po that killed 44 people and left hundreds homeless.
