Hong Kong authorities charged seven people and two companies on Wednesday (June 10, 2026) over the world’s deadliest residential building fire in decades, which killed 168 people at a public housing estate last year.

Hong Kong’s deadliest fire: Probe begins evidence hearings

The massive blaze, which engulfed seven of the eight high-rise apartment blocks at the Wang Fuk Court estate in November, prompted a months-long investigation in to the cause. Public hearings were told that almost all life-saving fire safety measures had failed on the day of the blaze because of human errors.

Hong Kong blaze: Why buildings have disastrous fires and how they can be prevented

Authorities “today charged seven individuals and two companies with 25 counts of offences, including manslaughter, conspiracy to defraud, ‘money-laundering’, attempting to pervert the course of public justice, and tax evasion”, the government said in a statement on Wednesday (June 10, 2026).

The seven people charged included directors and inspectors of a consultancy firm involved in the estate’s renovation, as well as the main contractor involved in the project, according to the statement. Substandard construction safety netting and cigarette butts were focal points of the probe into the causes and rapid spread of the world’s deadliest residential building fire since 1980.

Fire alarm systems for seven of eight blocks had also been deactivated, which “greatly shortened the time for residents to evacuate”, leading counsel Victor Dawes had told an independent committee conducting the probe. Required fire-retardant nets were not used in many places, and the windows were covered by foam boards, which may have contributed to the spread of fire into the flats, the panel heard earlier this year.

The Fire Investigation Task Force had maintained that an ignited cigarette caused combustible material to catch fire, sparking the blaze. Thousands of residents lost their homes in the blaze and relocated into temporary housing.

Firefighters battled a blaze at a high-rise residential complex in Hong Kong for the second day on Thursday (November 27, 2025), as the death toll rose to 65 in one of the deadliest blazes in the city’s modern history.

Thick smoke continued to pour out of some apartments in the Wang Fuk Court complex, a dense cluster of high-rise towers housing thousands of people in Tai Po district, a northern suburb near Hong Kong’s border with the mainland. Flames could still be seen inside the buildings on Thursday evening.

Hong Kong leader John Lee said contact had been lost with 279 people earlier on Thursday. Rescues were continuing in some of the towers, but authorities did not provide updates on the missing or how many were still trapped inside the ravaged buildings on Thursday during a press conference.

Firefighters have been trying to control the flames since midafternoon on Wednesday, when the fire started in bamboo scaffolding and construction netting and then spread across seven of the complex’s eight buildings. Fires in four buildings had been effectively put out, with the remaining three towers under control, authorities said Thursday afternoon.

One firefighter was among the dead, and 70 people were injured, authorities said. About 900 people were evacuated to temporary shelters overnight.

Resident Lawrence Lee was waiting for news about his wife, who he believed was still trapped in their apartment.

“When the fire started, I told her on the phone to escape. But once she left the flat, the corridor and stairs were all filled with smoke and it was all dark, so she had no choice but to go back to the flat,” he said, as he waited in one of the shelters overnight.

Winter and Sandy Chung, who lived in one of the towers, said they saw sparks fly around as they evacuated on Wednesday afternoon. Although they were safe, they were worried about their home. “I couldn’t sleep the entire night,” Winter Chung, 75, told The Associated Press on Thursday.