Two men and a woman, aged 18 to 25, were killed on Saturday night after a fire broke out at an industrial building in Kwai Chung.
The blaze erupted just after 6pm at Mai Sik Industrial Building on Kwai Ting Road, Apple Daily reports. Over 50 firefighters were deployed to the scene, and took roughly half an hour to put out the flames.
Firefighters found two men, surnamed Luk and Siu, and a woman, surnamed Cheng, unconscious inside a bathroom of a subdivided unit, where they had apparently sought refuge. The three were sent to Yan Chai Hospital and Princess Margaret Hospital for emergency treatment, but were all declared dead shortly afterward.
The subdivided unit was rented by Luk, a 25-year-old salesperson and part-time bartender, who reportedly used it to entertain guests for private parties. His girlfriend, Cheng, was also in sales and performed magic part-time. The third victim, an 18-year-old man surnamed Cheng, was an insurance agent.
The cause of the fire is still being investigated, but a police source told Apple Daily that it is suspected to have been set off by phosphorus powder, which Cheng used for her magic tricks.
Luk’s unit was one of 17 subdivided flats on the 6,000-square-foot floor. A representative for the Fire Services Department told reporters that the building was 45 years old, and did not have sprinklers installed.
Under Hong Kong law, industrial buildings, warehouses, and depots completed before 1973 are not required to install automatic sprinkler systems. As of 2010, there were 481 such buildings.
The Buildings Department confirmed to the Standard that the units’ landlord, Profit Tone Hong Kong Group, had not applied to subdivide the floor, and that the alterations made did not meet fire safety requirements.
Last year, concerns were raised over the city’s illegal and hazardous subdivided units after a fire erupted at a mini-storage facility at Ngau Tau Kok. The blaze, which raged on for 108 hours, claimed the lives of two firefighters. Just two weeks later, another fire broke out at a mini-storage facility where people were living illegally, injuring two teenaged siblings and killing one dog.
