The acrid stench of charred bamboo and melted plastic still hangs heavy over Tai Po as rescuers sift through the twisted wreckage of Wang Fuk Court, Hong Kong’s deadliest residential fire in 63 years. By Thursday morning, the official toll stood at 65 confirmed dead—51 at the scene, four more in hospitals from smoke inhalation—with 268 souls still unaccounted for in the labyrinth of eight gutted 32-story towers. Among the identified: Marcus “M.J.” Ramirez, a 28-year-old former Texas Tech Red Raiders linebacker whose life abroad ended in flames, leaving a trail of tributes from Lubbock to the New Territories. “M.J. was the glue—the guy who’d sack a QB then tutor the walk-ons,” Tech coach Joey McGuire said in a choked statement. “Hong Kong lost a hero; we lost a brother.”
The blaze, ignited at 2:51 p.m. Wednesday during a routine retrofit, devoured the complex—home to 4,800 souls, many elderly—in under two hours, fueled by miles of flammable scaffolding and gusting winds. Firefighters, over 1,000 strong, battled “hellish” conditions—smoke so thick it choked drones, stairwells clogged with debris—to pull 70 injured from the inferno. One survivor, a 45-year-old father trapped 18 hours on the 16th floor, emerged gasping: “I thought of my kids—prayed they’d find me.”
The Spark That Swallowed a Suburb
Wang Fuk Court, a 1980s-era public housing staple in Tai Po—a leafy enclave of 300,000 near China’s border—stood encased in renovation gear: Bamboo poles lashed with netting, plastic sheeting billowing like sails. A rogue welder’s torch in Block 1 sparked the catastrophe, flames leaping via the scaffold “chimneys” to seven towers. Elevators seized; upper floors became tombs. “We yelled for hours—then silence,” wept 72-year-old retiree Li Wei, rescued from the 28th floor with burns scarring her arms.
By dawn Thursday, half the blaze was doused, but embers smoldered in vents, delaying body recovery. Fire Services Commissioner Dominic Lai: “Top floors remain inaccessible—winds pushed fire upward like a dragon.” A task force, bolstered by mainland experts, probes the “gross negligence,” with three arrests: Construction bosses from Apex Build Ltd., charged with manslaughter over banned polystyrene panels. Advocacy group ARIAV decries a “scaffolding curse”—third such blaze this year.
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