Tai Po Inferno Was a Man-Made Disaster

On 26 November 2025, a massive fire broke out at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po, Hong Kong, during exterior wall renovation. Flames raced along the scaffolding and netting, igniting seven residential blocks at once. The blaze spread from one building to the entire estate in minutes. As of 2 December, the disaster had left 156 people dead and more than 30 missing, making it one of the deadliest residential fires in decades worldwide.

Caught between grief and fury, the public cannot help but ask:
Was this an accident, or a tragedy created by systemic failure?

A Disaster Rooted in Sheer Complacency

First-hand footage circulating online shows how quickly the fire spread. The primary cause was the use of non–fire-retardant scaffolding netting and foam panels. Under the Buildings Department and Labour Department’s guidelines, netting must be flame-retardant and self-extinguish within three seconds of ignition. But the netting seen on-site shot up in flames immediately.

Investigations revealed an even more infuriating detail:
Some contractors did purchase compliant fire-retardant netting — but installed it only at the base of each building, replacing the rest with ordinary, non-compliant netting to save roughly HKD 20,000 (about 105,800 TWD). Additionally, foam boards were used to seal some unit windows, funneling flames directly into homes. These materials had long been prohibited, yet were still used simply because they were cheap.

What’s worse, this danger was no secret.
For years, watchdog groups warned the government about flammable netting. Since 2023, Civic Sight chairman Michael Poon had sent over 80 emails to authorities about unsafe scaffolding in various housing estates. In May 2025, he specifically named Wang Fuk Court as using suspiciously non-compliant netting — but letters to the Fire Services Department never received a formal reply.

Residents also lodged complaints to multiple departments, only to be told that officials had “checked the certificates” or that fire risks were “low,” with no further action taken.

Engineers note that government inspections focus mainly on whether the structure of the scaffolding is secure, not whether the materials are fire resistant — effectively outsourcing public safety to the industry’s “self-discipline.” With lax oversight, contractors adopted a “no one checks anyway” mindset that turned regulations into empty words.

Inside the fire zone, fire safety systems also failed. Automatic alarms, sprinklers, hydrants, and fire bells in the eight buildings were all found to be nonfunctional, depriving residents of early escape warnings. Some exits were clogged with debris. It took three and a half hours from the first report for the incident to be upgraded to a five-alarm fire — a delay that worsened casualties.

From flammable materials, to inadequate government oversight, to malfunctioning fire systems, every layer of failure stacked together.
Let’s be clear: This was a man-made disaster.

Who Bears Responsibility?

If this was a man-made tragedy, where exactly did the system fail?

Police have arrested 15 people on suspicion of manslaughter, including executives from the main contractor, consulting engineers, and subcontractors involved in scaffolding and façade work.

The incident has also sparked another controversy:
Were there political–business entanglements?

DAB Tai Po South district councilor Wong Pik-kiu served as an adviser to the Wang Fuk Court owners’ corporation from early 2024 to 2025. During her tenure, the corporation approved the renovation project. She allegedly lobbied owners door-to-door to support the works and pushed for multiple controversial decisions, including simultaneous works on multiple blocks — increasing both risk and cost.

A district councilor serving as an OC adviser is a highly sensitive overlap. Councillors are expected to act as neutral third parties safeguarding public interest, whereas OC advisers handle tenders, project monitoring, and major financial decisions. The dual role naturally raises questions of conflict of interest.

Whether the OC, councilor, and contractors engaged in collusion, dereliction of duty, or even corruption remains under investigation by the ICAC and police.
But the tragedy exposes deep structural issues in Hong Kong’s building management system, which is a clear warning sign for the OC mechanism.

The Wider Problem: Aging Buildings and Weak Oversight

Old-building maintenance is a territory-wide problem. Wang Fuk Court is not an isolated case.
In 2021, Hong Kong had 27,000 buildings over 30 years old. By 2046, the number will rise to 40,000. With aging buildings, major repairs, fire system upgrades, escape-route improvements, and structural checks are becoming increasingly urgent.

But most homeowners lack engineering knowledge and rely entirely on their owners’ corporations. OC committee members are volunteers with limited time and expertise. Under pressure from mandatory inspection deadlines, they often make poor decisions with incomplete information.

Meanwhile, OCs hold enormous power — they manage all repair funds and approve all works — yet face minimal oversight. Bid-rigging and collusion are widespread.
Classic tactics involve competitors privately agreeing who should “win” a tender, distorting competition and harming owners.

Although Wang Fuk Court’s repair fund was managed by the OC, the Housing Bureau — overseer of subsidized housing — also cannot escape blame. With massive project costs and questionable workmanship, why did authorities not intervene or conduct deeper audits?
These systemic gaps enable problems to repeat endlessly.

How Australia Handles Major Repairs and Tendering

In contrast to Hong Kong’s volunteer-run OC model, Australia’s strata property system uses professional management + statutory regulation.

Owners corporations hire licensed strata managers, who then appoint independent building consultants to assess required works. Tendering follows a transparent, standardized process that includes checking contractor licences, insurance, and track records.

Owners rarely deal directly with contractors, reducing information asymmetry and the risk of lobbying. Major expenses must be approved by the owners’ meeting, and strata managers must provide written reports and bear legal accountability.

This creates clear divisions of responsibility, heightens transparency, and minimizes corruption, bid-rigging, and low-quality work. Contractors have fewer opportunities to privately lobby homeowners or manipulate the tendering process.

Is the Government Truly Responding to Public Demands?

After the disaster was widely recognized as man-made, public anger exploded.
Residents, experts, scholars, and former officials all condemned the failure of Hong Kong’s regulatory system and demanded accountability.

Residents quickly formed the Tai Po Wang Fuk Court Fire Concern Group, raising four demands on 28 November:

1. Ensure proper rehousing for affected residents

2. Establish an independent commission of inquiry

3. Conduct a comprehensive review of major-repairs regulations

4. Hold departments accountable for oversight failures

Over 5,000 online signatures were collected the next day.

Under intense public pressure, Chief Executive John Lee announced on 3 December the formation of an “independent committee” led by a judge to examine the fire and its rapid spread.

However — and this is crucial — this body is not a statutory Commission of Inquiry.
A COI, established under the Commissions of Inquiry Ordinance, has legal powers to summon witnesses, demand documents, and take sworn testimony, giving it far stronger investigative and accountability capabilities.

By comparison, the “independent committee” lacks compulsory powers and focuses on “review and prevention” rather than defining responsibility or recommending disciplinary action.

This falls far short of public expectations, raising doubts about whether the government genuinely intends to confront the issue.

A Second Fire: The Fire of Distrust

In the aftermath of the Wang Fuk Court inferno, the community displayed remarkable self-organisation: residents gathered supplies, assisted displaced families, compiled lists of elderly neighbours, and coordinated temporary support. These actions were the natural response of civil society stepping in when public governance collapses. And while contractor negligence and construction issues sparked public outrage, an even deeper anger targeted the government’s total failure in oversight and crisis management.

Ironically, as residents were busy helping one another, some volunteers were arrested on suspicion of “incitement.” The fire broke out just days before the 7 December Legislative Council election. In the eyes of the government, any form of spontaneous community mobilisation seemed to be viewed as a “risk” rather than support.

Haunted by the shadow of 2019, the authorities remain terrified of bottom-up community organising. Instead of crisis management, they engage in risk suppression—focusing on dampening social sentiment rather than improving rescue efficiency. Blame is shifted toward “those who raise questions,” instead of the systems that produced the problem in the first place.

These reactions transformed what could have been a moment of community unity into a much deeper crisis of public trust.

Beijing’s Disaster Narrative

In sharp contrast to the Hong Kong government’s understated approach, Beijing intervened swiftly and publicly. President Xi Jinping ordered full rescue efforts and expressed condolences immediately. Yet such speed also suggests that Beijing vividly remembers the 2022 Urumqi fire, which triggered the “White Paper Movement.”

In Chinese political logic, fires are never just accidents—they can become flashpoints of public anger. With long-standing grievances over housing policy, old-building safety, and the culture of unaccountability, Beijing moved quickly to prevent emotions from spilling over.

Notably, the Office for Safeguarding National Security in Hong Kong issued a statement during the rescue phase, warning that “anti-China, destabilising forces are waiting to create chaos,” emphasising that political stability overrides everything else.

Under China’s crisis-management style, officials frequently shift public focus from “the causes and responsibility of the disaster” toward “the hardship and heroism of rescue workers.” Following the Wang Fuk Court fire, some local media began flooding the airwaves with stories of brave firefighters and tireless medical staff, all being positive narratives that subtly eclipse the underlying issues of flammable materials, broken systems, and weak oversight.

By swiftly arresting a few contractors and engineers, authorities aim to frame the incident as the fault of several “technical offenders,” preventing accountability from extending to systemic failures or government departments.

This narrative reframes a man-made tragedy into a supposed showcase of “government mobilisation,” diluting public scrutiny and preventing grief and anger from evolving into collective resistance.

A particularly important detail:
In the early stages, several Western media outlets focused heavily on the idea that “bamboo scaffolding is inherently risky,” while barely discussing the scaffolding netting, material quality, or regulatory negligence. This inadvertently echoed the Hong Kong government’s early narrative frame. It also exposed a cultural bias—an assumption that bamboo equals danger—overlooking the rigorous safety standards of Hong Kong’s traditional scaffolding industry. As a result, some international reporting unintentionally helped divert attention away from structural, institutional failures during the crucial first days.

Who Should Be Held Accountable?

The shock of this catastrophe lies not only in the scale of casualties but in the fact that behind what seems like an “accident” are layers of systemic failure—from flammable netting and dead fire-safety systems, to weak regulation, chaotic building management, bid-rigging culture, and the government’s post-disaster reliance on a national-security framework to manage public sentiment.

So, the fundamental question remains:
Who is responsible for this fire?

As of the copy deadline (3 December) and after the seven-day mourning period, Hong Kong has seen zero officials, zero government departments, and zero senior leaders take any responsibility. Whether this was an accident or a man-made disaster is beyond obvious, yet the government—obsessed with saving face—refuses to admit regulatory failure. Instead, it blames bamboo and a handful of contractors, shrinking a deeply interconnected man-made catastrophe into the fault of a few convenient scapegoats.

AFP put it bluntly when a reporter asked Chief Executive John Lee:

“You said you want to lead Hong Kong from stability to prosperity.
But in this ‘prosperous’ society you described, 151 people have died in a single fire.
Why do you still deserve to keep your job?”

From 2019, to the pandemic, to the collapse of the medical system, and now this fire—no one has ever been held accountable for catastrophic policy failures.

What Can We Do?

The disaster is far from over. The real challenges are only beginning: nearly 2,000 households across the eight blocks face long-term displacement, trauma, and the struggle to rebuild their lives.

For Hongkongers and Chinese people living in Australia, what can be done?

Perhaps the answer is simpler—and more important—than we think:
Support those affected. Emotionally, psychologically, and materially. Even from afar, offering solidarity, sharing information, donating to practical assistance, or simply staying engaged with the issue matters.

After a tragedy like this, our role is not only to mourn.
It is to refuse to let the disaster fade away without accountability or reform.
And it is to remind ourselves, gently but urgently:
cherish the people beside us, and hold close those who still walk this uncertain world with us.