HONG KONG, December 3. . The death toll in a fire at an apartment complex in Hong Kong has increased to 159 people after search and rescue teams found the bodies of three more victims. The newspaper reported this news South China Morning Post is related to the Capitol Police.
Before reported about 156 people died.
According to police, 37 victims are still hospitalized, four of whom are in critical condition. Nine victims were seriously injured.
The fire started on November 26 at a complex of eight high-rise buildings, Wang Fuk Court, in the Tai Po area, known as Hong Kong's New Territories. One building was practically undamaged, while seven were engulfed in flames. The fire spread through construction mesh and bamboo scaffolding installed on these buildings for cosmetic repairs. The complex has almost 2 thousand apartments, about 4 thousand people live there. There are currently no reports of Russian citizens injured in the fire in Hong Kong. As Consul Ekaterina Bogucharskaya, press secretary of the Russian Consulate General in Hong Kong, previously told , Russian diplomats are closely monitoring the developments of the situation.
The current fire is the most serious in a residential building in the city's history. Previously, the largest number of deaths in a residential building fire in an urban area was the Garley Building fire in 1996, which killed 41 people and injured 81 people. At the same time, Hong Kong also recorded more catastrophic fires, but not in residential buildings. The deadliest in urban history began on February 27, 1918 at Happy Valley Racetrack. More than 600 people died after a temporary stand collapsed and a fire broke out. Another fire occurred on Des Voeux Road West in 1948, when a block of celluloid film caught fire in a warehouse and spread to living quarters, killing 176 people and injuring 69 others.
