How the Chinese Government Killed 168 People in These Towers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZQlJCXWK1o
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November 26th, 2025.Wong Fu Court Apartment Complex, Taipo District,Hong Kong.It was 2:00 in the afternoon,and Jackie was sound asleep in, her 16th floor residence of block, 7 when a faint smell woke her, up.She got out of bed and went to check the kitchen.But the stove was cold, and there was no pot on it.Whatever was burning wasn’t hers, and it wasn’t food.It smelled like plastic.She went to the window and glanced, through the green mesh and bamboo, scaffoldings, drooped all over her apartment block.She saw a small orange fire flickering against the face of a tower nearby.So, she took the elevator down, to the lobby and walked over, to the security desk.And before she could finish explaining,the guard told her he already knew that there was a fire on block six.But no one, including the guard,looked worried, and she couldn’t hear any fire alarms.Assuming everything was fine,Jackie took the elevator back up to her floor and returned to her apartment.But everything was not fine.In fact,
a disaster the likes of which Hong Kong had never seen was well underway.And soon, hundreds of innocent lives would be destroyed.Not by accident,but because of the greed of a corporation,
and the corruption of a government, that would later arrest any victims, who attempted to seek justice.Let’s get into it.Today’s topic was suggested to us by viewer Tiramisu,who is hopefully watching right now.If you are, thank you for taking the time to submit this topic.It has got to be one of the most horrible tragedies, ever caused by corporate and government corruption.It also happened relatively recently and barely anyone talks about it.I will say that as far as stories go,the ones from the survivors and victims of this atrocity, were hard to read about,but we felt it was important, that we make this video so that, hopefully their voices can be, amplified and more awareness, can be brought to the injustice, they are subjected to by their, own government.If you have a video topic you’d like to see us cover next,
then go to brewsolves.com, where you can click on this button to access the suggest a topic form.Now, on to today’s story.By 2:45 p.m., dark smoke began pouring upward from block 6,spilling out across the estate until it swallowed the sky above the tower.
b [no object] : to fall or flow over the edge of a container洒出；溢出
Milk spilled (out) onto the table.
牛奶溢到了桌子上。
Water spilled over the dam.
水溢出了大坝。
The bag ripped open and the flour spilled (out) onto the floor.
袋子扯坏了，面粉撒到了地板上。
— sometimes used figuratively有时用作比喻
Her hair spilled down her back.
她的头发披散在背后。
The smell reached flats several blocks away, and from the other blocks,residents stood at their windows watching the plume climb.At 2:51 p.m.,the telephone lines across the Taipo Fire Service Department started going off.Reports of a huge blaze started coming in.A fire that had started at the ground floor of block 6 was spreading vertically, upwards, very rapidly.The first crews reached the estate at 2:56 p.m.In those 5 minutes, the fire had climbed the entire face of the tower,which should not have been possible.In a well-maintained high-rise,fire moves slowly, because that is precisely what the building is built to make it do.Concrete floors, fire doors,and sealed shafts are all designed, to hold a fire in the room where.
it started and to buy the people, upstairs, roughly an hour to get out.And an hour should be enough time to escape [music] the disaster safely.But block six of Wong Fu Court, gave them only 5 minutes before, the blaze turned into a level, three disaster,something Hong Kong had never witnessed before.Two floors above the street in block 6,William Lee had taken the day off to sleep through the afternoon.His wife was out, so he was left alone in the flat.At 3:02 p.m., his phone woke him up.It was his wife.”There’s a fire.You need to go,” she said.This confused William since no fire alarms were ringing,and he couldn’t smell any smoke.But when he opened his door to leave,he was met with a wall of smoke so thick he couldn’t see his hands.Not even the flashlight on his, phone could penetrate through, the noxious fumes now rushing, into the apartment.He immediately slammed the door shut.William called his wife back and asked,“If I try to rush out of the fire escape and run to the main lobby,
can I get out?” To his horror,she informed him that the lobby had already been claimed by the flames.William had no way out.His only hope was to wait and hope to be rescued.William’s first priority was, doing everything he could to, stop any more smoke from seeping, into the apartment.So,he soaked every towel he could, find and press them against the, gap between the door and the, floor.But then he heard it.The faint sound of someone crying out from the hallway,“Help!” Without hesitation,he wrapped a wet towel around, his mouth and stepped [music], into the pitch black corridor.His throat burned, his eyes flooded with tears.He couldn’t see and could barely breathe,but he couldn’t leave someone stranded in conditions that were unbearable, after only seconds,so he pushed through and followed the direction of the voice,feeling his way along the wall of the corridor.Then, suddenly,he touched two bodies.It was his neighbors, a middle-aged couple,Mr.and Mrs.Tio.
William quickly guided them to his apartment, pulled them inside,and closed the door behind them.But they hadn’t been alone in the hallway.The toes explained that minutes ago,the window in their apartment, had shattered as flames and smoke, erupted into the room.They had attempted to douse the fire with a shower head, but it was no use.They had no option but to take their chances in the smoke-filled hallway.Once out in the corridor, they heard a voice echoing through the darkness.A domestic worker was desperately calling out to an elderly woman.Then all of a sudden, the voice fell quiet.Hearing this, William felt incredibly guilty.But he knew that walking back, into the corridor and risking, their own lives to find people, who had most likely already perished, in the smoke was not an option.There was nothing they could, do besides take shelter in Williams, apartment and hope that help, was on the way.But even this refuge was slowly disappearing.
Despite the wet towels, smoke continued slipping beneath the doors.gradually filling every room.Meanwhile, over in block five,Ba Soyen, was in her 17th floor apartment when she saw the flames climbing block six,the block where her son lived.She called out to her husband, Mr.Yipkakoy, and without a second thought,he ran downstairs to check on him, leaving Bosoy behind in the apartment.But by the time he reached the ground, the fire had already spread.Burning debris from block 6 only, had to travel a few dozen meters, through the air to land on other, buildings.And at 3:34 p.m., as blocks 5 and seven caught,the fire escalated to a number four alarm.Realizing his wife was in danger, Mr.Yip quickly called her on his phone.”Don’t come downstairs,” he told her.To him, it was the safest advice he could give.He believed firefighters, would be able to deal with the flames before they reached her.He had no way of knowing that in actuality,emergency [music] workers wouldn’t, be able to put out the fires.
for another two full days.Basoi heeded her husband’s warning,but she was not going to just sit idly in her apartment and wait.She stepped into the already smokefilled, corridor and knocked on one apartment door after another,warning her neighbors to leave while there was still time.Get out.The fire is spreading.Elsewhere on that floor,39-year-old, domestic helper Veridor, was caring for her employer’s 3-month-old son and his 90-year-old grandmother.And when the smoke reached their apartment,Veridor, knew it would be up to her to make sure the elderly woman and infant survived.Elevators were no longer operating,so the fire escape staircase was the only remaining [music] safe option.A sealed concrete shaft cut off from every floor it passes,specifically built so that a person could walk down through a burning building,breathing clean air the whole way.It was the single system in the high-rise that the entire evacuation, plan rested on.
But when Vidor got the grandmother to the door, put the baby against her chest,and opened it, to her horror,the stairwell [music] was full of smoke.She had no time to wonder why, the one place that should have, been safe had been turned into, a giant smoke stack and started, down the stairwell anyway.There simply was no other option.The heat climbed as she descended.The smoke thickened, and burning debris fell around them while glass broke somewhere above,but she refused to turn back.Keeping one arm around the baby, and staying close enough to the, old woman to make sure she kept, moving.Inside the towers of Wong Fu Court, the evacuation was being run by neighbors.People hammered on doors and shouted warnings down smokefield corridors, and the message spread at the speed of a person running up a staircase, one floor at a time.By 4:40 p.m.traffic on Taipo Yunoai Road had stopped moving entirely.More than 700 firefighters were working on site inside the burning buildings.
The temperature had reached around 500° C.Debris began to fall off the towers as they burned,which made the upper floors harder to reach with every minute that passed.and rescue crews were losing the race to reach the people trapped above.On the road, as residents stood watching their homes burn,some wondered how this could have happened.Everything about this disaster felt designed to kill as many people as possible.Why were the flames spreading, so quickly over the concrete, surfaces of the towers?Why hadn’t the fire alarms gone off?Why were the fire escapes full of smoke?And what or who had started the fire in the first place?The answer starts with the fact, that Wong Fu Court had been under, repairs that it desperately needed,[music] which wouldn’t have been, a problem if the organization, in charge of said repairs wasn’t, as corrupt as they come.The estate had been built in 1983, and by the early 2020s,it was [music] showing every one of its nearly 40 years.
Walls were cracking, exterior tiles were coming loose,and the concrete underneath had begun to wear.Under Hong Kong’s mandatory inspection laws,an aging estate in that condition doesn’t get out of repairs.The owners are required to fix it,but no one objected to the renovation, because the renovation was never the problem.The problem started with the decision made by a man named Tong Kwin.Tong was chairman of the owner’s corporation,which is the body of residents that carries legal responsibility, for an estate like this one.These responsibilities involve hiring the contractor, approving the budget,and signing the paperwork that says the work can [music] begin.And in Tong’s view, the estate didn’t just need patching.He wanted the exterior tiling on all eight blocks replaced completely.More than that, he didn’t want it done one tower at a time either.He decided all eight would be worked on at once.Which is the [music] reason that on the afternoon of November 26th, 2025,
there were eight towers standing in Taipo, covered in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh instead of just one.But Tong wasn’t going to run a 330 million Hong Kong dollar project by himself.So he brought in Wong Hapin, a director at a firm called Willpower Architects.And in 2021,the owner’s corporation handed Wong the two jobs that mattered most.Number one, choosing the contractor,and number two, supervising the work once it started.The residents kept the right to vote,but Wong got to make every decision that shaped what they’d be voting on,such as what construction companies, were invited to bid, who made, the short list,and who checked the work afterwards.That was the first mistake the owners corporation, made and it was the one that made every mistake after possible.In 2023, Wong ran the tender,collected bids, and cut the list of companies down to [music] 14.Among them was Prestige Construction Company,which had made the most demanding and costly construction offer of 330.
million Hong Kong dollars.And for some reason, Wong pushed Tong to take it.Why the architect running the, tender would steer the owners, towards the priciest bid on his, own short list is a question, worth holding on to.Nonetheless, in January 2024,the owner’s corporation put the contractor to [music] a formal vote,and roughly 200 people turned, out to cast a ballot on who would, be trusted with their homes.When the results came back,Prestige Construction had been declared the winner with 570 votes.Yet, as we just said,according to [music] records and resident accounts,only around 200 ballots had ever been cast.This difference quickly became a topic of discussion throughout the estate.Residents questioned how the winning contractor, could have received more votes than the total number of ballots reportedly, submitted.In the weeks that followed,complaints and allegations, concerning the bidding process were raised against the owner’s corporation,the consulting firm, and Prestige Construction.
For the Wong Fu residents, the high demanding construction company,and the renovation project itself became a huge problem.The Estates Corporation head, Tong,announced that each household would be expected to pay 22,957, for the renovations from their own pockets.For most of the estate residents,who largely belonged to a working-class background,paying such huge amounts in such little time was impossible.As the renovation project progressed,frustration among residents continued to build.Complaints became increasingly common and dissatisfaction, with the estates’s management grew throughout the community.In response,residents organized efforts to remove the corporation, management committee led by chairman Tong.Their campaign ultimately succeeded and in September 2024,1 month after renovations had begun,a new management committee was formed under a new chairman.One of the residents who formed the new committee was a man named Mr.Lee Qualong.
[music] He was a retired construction, worker with more than 40 years, of experience in the field.Concerned by what he was seeing at the renovation site, Mr.Lee began reviewing the project’s, tender documents and construction, contracts on his own.As he compared the paperwork with the conditions around the estate,several details caught his attention.Non-fire retardant safety nets and bamboo scaffolding surrounded the towers,while equally hazardous polystyrene, insulation boards covered large sections of the exterior walls and windows.The more he examined the documents, the more questions he had.Records relating to Prestige, Construction Company and its, selection for the project led, him to investigate, further.He also came across information regarding past allegations, involving safety violations,disputes,and other concerns connected to companies participating in the renovation works.So Lee called the fire services department.Then he called them again and kept calling,
telling them that there was polystyrene, wrapped around eight occupied residential towers and that it was going to burn.Their, answer was that it didn’t violate any existing regulation, and no further action was taken.Not that they inspected it and found it safe.Basically, they just denied the validity of his concerns.So,Lee gathered up copies of the contracts and the renovation, documents and carried them in person to the [music] Independent Commission, against corruption.Hong Kong’s Anti-Corruption, Agency, and the one body specifically, built to look at exactly [music] the kind of thing he thought he was holding.But the ICAC declined to investigate.What Lee had brought them, he was told,[music] looked like an internal business dispute,and internal business disputes fell outside of their scope.He kept going anyway.Over the following months,he made the rounds of the AC and the Urban Renewal Authority, filing complaints,arguing that residents were being, kept in the dark about work being.
done on their own homes in raising, questions about potential corruption, in how the tender and the construction, had been handled from the start.Meanwhile, the flammable netting,polyister steering, and bamboo stayed up,and the renovations, Lee had been trying to warn everyone, about went into their second, year exactly as they had before.That was until the typhoon hit.Typhoon Waggasaw was the most violent typhoon in the Pacific Ocean during 2025.It had already crossed the northern, Philippines by the time it reached, Hong Kong at the end of September, 2025,and Taipo sat directly in its path.The wind shredded the netting, on all eight towers and the bamboo, scaffolding underneath came apart, along with it.A notice went out to residents shortly afterwards.The mesh coverings and scaffolding on several blocks had sustained, serious damage,it said, and repairs would be carried out on two Sundays,September 28th and October 5th.Days the site would normally have been closed.
The stated reason was to get the work back on schedule.But what mattered was the material, that arrived to replace everything, the storm had destroyed.Mr.Lee noticed the nets going up, around the towers were visibly, cheaper and flimsier than the, ones the Typhoon had already, taken down.[music] Prestige and Willpower had swapped the damaged non-fireproof, mesh for a cheaper,even more fireprone alternative.And the money the company saved, with this decision would ultimately, come at a devastating, human cost.Meanwhile, Mr.Lee wasn’t the only resident, on the committee trying to get, the government to do something, before it was too late.A whistleblower, going by the pseudonym Chris out of fear for his own safety, knew what the proper renovation, materials were supposed to be because, despite what the fire services department had told Mr.Lee earlier, Hong Kong’s regulations are specific about this.Safety mesh on a construction, site has [music] to meet the, labor department’s requirements,
which means passing fire retardant certification.The foam board used to seal off, windows also has to be fireproof, and self-extinguishing.Instead, what Chris was looking at meant no safety standards.Not only was the mesh non-f fire retardant,but the construction workers, were starting to cover [music], the buildings with highly flammable, styrofoam, boxes from the inside out.So, in early October,Chris reported it to the independent checking unit, ICU.The body responsible for building control in subsidized estates like this one.He told them the material on his home didn’t meet safety standards,and the civil servant who took, the complaint told him the ICU, would send someone out to inspect, it soon.This gave Chris some hope, so he waited.But as days passed, no one came.And then on October 18th, a building on the other side of the city caught fire.China Tower was a 23-story office building 32 km from Taipo,also under renovation, [music] wrapped in green safety mesh,
hung on bamboo, the same way Wong Fu was.Something, ignited the mesh and the fire went up the outside of the building in minutes.It took hours to put it out and, every news channel in Hong Kong, covered the entire incident.Fortunately,no lives were lost as it was, an office block and the fire, broke out in the absence of workers, on a Sunday.All 50 occupants, present inside the building at, the time were able to escape, before the fire turned deadly.For Chris, however,it foreshadowed, a bigger disaster that could hit thousands of homes in the Wongfu Court estate.So, he went back to the ICU on October 23rd,insisting that the material at Wong Fu Court be inspected as soon as possible.Because not only were there quality concerns regarding the scaffoldings,but several [music] residents, including him,had witnessed the construction workers smoking at the site.The ICU department took 8 days to respond this time.The safety of workers [music] and residents has always been our top priority.
The inspection found some deficiencies in the external wall facilities,[music] but regarding the earlier concerns,the contractor group has been instructed to complete the renovations, as soon as possible.A very generic response that, failed to reassure Chris and, hundreds of other residents who, had been anticipating, genuine involvement in inspection from the authorities for almost a year,especially, now after the China, Tower fire had proven that their safety concerns were wellfounded.But instead of fixing the issue,the ICU brushed them off and simply told contractors to renovate quickly.And because of this, less than a month later,the mesh on block 6 caught fire.Chris was at work the afternoon it happened.He lost the apartment he had, lived in for decades in the 9-year-old, poodle he had left in it that, morning in [music] a fire he, had spent 2 months trying to, warn the government about.Yet, he was one of the lucky ones.Le Jan Ho was on shift across, town when a co-orker told him, Wong Fu court was burning.
He left immediately, because his mother was in a flat, on one of the 19th floors along, with his brother,the family’s domestic helper, and Lay’s 15-month-old niece.By the time he reached the estate,the police had already cordoned off the area and he wasn’t getting in.So, he called his mother instead.When she picked up, he could hear her coughing before she said anything.His mother, brother,young niece, [music] and two domestic helpers were trapped inside the apartment.The electricity had failed.There was no running water.Hours had [music] passed since any of them had food or water.Smoke kept seeping in, leaving them fewer places to escape it.Every 15 minutes, Lelay called back,and each time his mother answered, her voice sounded weaker than before.[music] His sister-in-law, joined him outside the burning building sometime later,and the two of them rushed from, one police officer to another, at a nearby community center,pleading for someone to help.Every conversation ended the same way.
[music] Please wait.But waiting wasn’t stopping the smoke.By 9:00 p.m., the apartment had become almost impossible to breathe in.One room after another filled, with smoke until the family retreated, into a bedroom.The last place where the air was still barely breathable.It was then that the call became a video call.[music] Lelay watched his brother, pull his young daughter into, his arms while trying to keep, their mother and one of the helpers, conscious.Every breath they took was a struggle.The room [music] was shrinking around them.Desperate,Lee ran to a fire command vehicle, and thrust [music] his phone, toward a group of firefighters.On the screen, his family was still trapped inside the apartment.A commander quickly took down the address and assured him it would be passed on.[music] But Lee wasn’t the only one begging for help.By then, police had already received eight emergency calls from the same area.An urgent message was immediately relayed to frontline firefighters.
There are four people on the 18th floor who must be saved.The response [music] came back moments later.The rescue teams couldn’t get past the 14th floor.The fire had already cut them off.There was nothing anyone on the ground could do.Still connected by video call,Lee and his sister-in-law watched helplessly as his brother,[music] who had been desperately waiting for help for the past 5 hours,took his last breath while Lei and his sister-in-law, screamed and cried in agony on the [music] other end, before the screen went black as the battery died.Also above the 14th floor, Baoyen kept moving from door to door,refusing to stop until every family began making their way to safety.By the time Bashoy thought about escaping herself,the conditions had progressed severely.Smoke had swallowed the hallways.Visibility was gone.When her husband, Mr.Yip, called again,Bashoi’s voice had changed.She told him she couldn’t see anymore.She couldn’t find the way out.
[music] The smoke had become too thick to breathe.As the call continued, her words grew weaker.Then they stopped altogether.The line remained connected, but all Mr.Yip could hear was the sound of fire.Reports would later indicate that Bashoy, had managed to save at least [music] three families at the cost of her own life.Her body and those of many other victims, would only be recovered after the fire had finally been put out 2 days later.And for Mr.Yip,5 days would pass before he was, [music] finally able to identify, his wife’s body.Fortunately, not everyone above the 14th floor shared the same tragic fate.As she descended down the smoke-filled fire escape,Veridor’s breathing grew heavier with each floor,and her body begged for a moment’s rest.But the cries of the baby and, the grandmother following beside, her were enough to keep her feet, moving.Veridor pressed on through the smoke, refusing to leave either of them behind.But at [music] one point,
the smoke had gotten so thick that she lost sight of the grandmother.She called out repeatedly, “Ma,ma, ma!” until a weak voice answered from behind.They continued on.I wanted to rest,but I couldn’t because we might have been trapped and the fire might get to us.I saw the door, opened it,looked up at one of the buildings, it was gone.All of it.It all burned down.After descending, 17 floors on foot while fighting for her life every step of the way,Veridor managed to lead the infant and the elderly woman to safety.[music] Nobody could tell her yet why the stairwell had smoke in it.That answer was still [music] weeks away.Meanwhile, on the second floor of block 6,William and the So had been leaning out of the apartment windows,shouting for help and hoping someone below would hear them.[music] No one answered.As the smoke thickened and the heat intensified,they began discussing options, that only hours earlier would, have seemed unimaginable.Should they jump?
The second [music] floor wasn’t particularly high,but the flames climbing the outside, of the building had turned the, space below into an inferno.Jumping offered little chance of survival.Firefighters attempted to reach them several times,but the burning bamboo scaffolding, surrounding the building blocked every rescue attempt.Believing he might never see his family again,William [music] began sending goodbye messages.One after another, he texted his wife,relatives, friends,[music] and colleagues.Then he posted a photo of his apartment window, which was burning bright red.The caption read, [music] “I can’t escape.If something happens to me, please take care of my children.Look after [music] yourselves.” Then a voice broke through the chaos.”Is anyone inside?” At around 5:00 p.m.,a team of firefighters, had finally [music] reached the apartment using an aerial ladder.”We’re here.We’re here!” William and the couple shouted back.Despite waiting hours for rescue,
William insisted the firefighters take his neighbors [music] first.The Tos refused, arguing that William should go instead,but William wouldn’t budge.He was younger, he told them.He could hold on a little longer.Only after the couple had been brought safely to the ground did the firefighters, returned for him.[music] As William stepped toward the window, he paused.Behind him was the home he had spent decades of his life,a place filled with belongings, and memories that [music] would, soon be reduced to ashes.He took one last look around, before climbing into the aerial, ladder and descending toward, the ground where his family waited, anxiously, outside a nearby McDonald’s.Meanwhile, 16 floors up block 7,Jackie,who had previously gone back, to her flat after trusting a, guard who made it seem that the, fire was under control,now found herself suffocating in [music] a thickening fume.By the time she realized the, danger, smoke had already filled, into her apartment.
She soaked towels with water and pressed them beneath the front door,hoping to slow it down.It wasn’t enough.Room by room,the smoke swallowed the apartment, until the bathroom became [music], the only place where she could, still breathe.There, Jackie had remained trapped for hours.Every 30 minutes,rescuers, called to check if she was [music] still alive and to confirm her location.But reaching her was another matter entirely.The burning bamboo scaffolding, and flaming mesh surrounding, the building kept the firefighters, at bay.Alone in the smoke-filled bathroom,Jackie gradually lost hope that anyone would make it to her.Then after 5 hours of being trapped, the bathroom door finally opened.The rescuers had made it.The men who pulled William, his neighbors,and Jackie out were working in, conditions that had already killed, one of their own.Ho Wii Ho was 37, a senior member of his team,and he had been assigned to a rescue operation in block 6 at around 3 p.m.to clear the 27th floor.
By then, thick smoke had swallowed the estate.Visibility had dropped to almost nothing,reducing entire corridors and stairwells to a haze of black.Firefighters could barely make out one block from another,and residents fleeing for their lives were just as disoriented.Firefighter Ho Wii Ho became separated from his team and,unable to see where he was going, wandered into a different block by mistake.He was last seen at 3:15 p.m.going alone into block 5 instead of six.Amid the chaos, he pressed deeper into a block he was not supposed to enter,where the blaze was at its fire crest.By the time he reached the 31st floor of that block, he was completely alone.The oxygen levels were dangerously low.All Hoai Ho breathed was poison.Every breath drew more toxic smoke into his lungs.At 3:22 p.m.,he called his team for help and incorrectly, told them he was trapped at the top of block 6.The team failed to locate him, and ho ho in a desperate [music], attempt to escape the smoke,
broke a window on the 31st floor and fell to his death.His body was later found at 3:55 p.m.in front of the fifth block [music], with fractured bones and burn, marks all over his face.Officer Hoe was rushed to a nearby hospital, but it was already too late.The carbon monoxide had taken over,and he succumb to his injuries in the hospital bed.Meanwhile,the situation back at the residential estate was [music] only worsening.The number of people missing was rising every minute.By 6:52 p.m., the Wongfu Court fire alarm was raised to level five,the highest severity level on the city’s emergency response scale.The heat was also no longer confined [music] to the residential complex.Pedestrians, from 100 meters away started, reporting feeling [music] intense, heat while the rescue teams tried, to put out possibly the biggest, fire in Hong Kong’s history.Firefighters, continued directing water toward, the burning towers as residents, remained trapped inside.Meanwhile,people using the building’s designated.
fire escape routes stopped responding, to rescuers, calls one by one.Days later,investigators, would go into the buildings to, understand how so many residents, had died in the areas designated, to protect from fire and smoke.The findings revealed a series of problems that had gone unnoticed, or ignored [music], for months.The building’s emergency stairwells had been compromised.Fireresistant, windows had been replaced with, wooden boards so construction, workers could access the exterior, scaffolding.When the fire reached those boards, they burned away in [music] moments,leaving the stairwells exposed.Toxic smoke surged inside,turning what should have been the building’s safest evacuation, route into a death trap.Then they checked the water tanks that fed the building’s firefighting, sprinkler system, and found them dry.This was because Prestige had, ordered them emptied so workers, could tile the tank’s interior, walls.This particular renovation served zero practical purpose.The concrete tanks weren’t leaking.
and the stored water wasn’t intended, for drinking.But for some unknown reason, they did [music] it anyway.And when the fire broke out,those empty tanks meant there was no water for the sprinkler system.Had this decision never been made,firefighters might have stood a fighting chance,and the disaster that followed may not have claimed so many lives.Not only that, but draining the water tanks had required cutting the power.So, an electrician employed by the estates’s management,a man not qualified to be doing this,was instructed to throw the master switches.Those switches ran the fire alarms,which stayed off for an entire month leading up to the fire.And that is why none of the hundreds of people in the Wongfu, Court Towers that day heard any, alarm when the fire began consuming, the buildings.All because the contractors were looking for extra and unnecessary work.The rescue operations continued the next day, but John Lay,the city’s chief executive, broke tragic news to the public.
In a briefing held at 1:10 a.m.,he announced that the inferno [music] engulfed the lives of 36 residents.But he was reading those figures while the buildings were still burning.It was only the deaths confirmed so far.There were still 279 more residents unaccounted for, but by then,the arrests had already started.At 3:41 a.m.shortly after the briefing, police took Hoqin Yip,a director of Prestige Construction, along with co-director Ha Wa Yin,and the company’s authorized signatory Steve Wong Chungi.The charge was manslaughter.Following these arrests,the Independent Commission against corruption, launched an official investigation, into the parties authorizing the construction work on the 27th of November,something Mr.Lei and Chris had been insisting on since more than a year before the fire.And had their cries been heard earlier on,the Wongfu Court tragedy would have been completely avoided.By 6:23 a.m.on the 27th of November, a day after the tragedy began,the rescue teams had put out.
the fires [music] in four of, the seven burning blocks.The team began searching these blocks despite the intense heat.And all they were finding were bodies burned to unrecognizable degrees.The stairwells and corridors, where people once roamed freely,were now scattered with the bodies of the deceased.The death toll rose to 75 by 10 p.m.on the second day.By 10:15 a.m.on November 28th,3 days into the disaster, after the strenuous [music] work carried out by more than 2,000 firefighters,the last burning flame in Wongfu Court was finally put out.And then the investigators worked to find out how it all started.Upon initial inspections,it was discovered that the fire was indeed fueled by the cheap fireprone, safety nets and styrofoam boards.And what lit them was none other, than the discarded cigarette, of a smoking worker,a behavior residents had expressed concerns about for months.The corruption that Mr.Lei wanted to expose for so long was finally being stamped as the actual truth.
The ICAC investigations, revealed that Director Wong of Willpower Architects, was involved in hiding the yearslong history of safety violations, committed by Prestige Construction.This involved laundering money and smuggling [music] non-compliant, hazardous construction material to construction sites.Director Wong and Director Ho together with several other officials, were continuously, conspiring, to fool government safety inspectors, who visited the construction, site countless times.Around 16 safety inspections were carried out between July 2024, and November 2025.But the inspectors found no issues with the construction material,which was confusing, because even locals [music] were able to identify the problems at a glance.It later turned out that Prestige and Willpower, had been showing fake fire safety certificates, to the officials for the entire year.To make matters worse,they kept some amount of compliant, fireproof netting ready so the inspectors wouldn’t suspect a thing.
The actual nets in use were kept in places where the inspectors could not reach.As if this weren’t enough,recovered documents showed that the representatives, of both companies were involved in laundering, 40 million Hong Kong dollars from the Wongfu Court renovation project.These investigations, which continued for months onward,led to the arrest of a total of 37 people,of whom seven were the highest representatives of the two companies involved.However, these delayed legal actions came with a public uproar.The residents of the Wong Fu court,who had long been warning the, government about the safety violations, of the renovations,began protesting.Miles Quan, a 24-year-old university student,ran an online petition that demanded transparency, and accountability from the Chinese government.The student who had received the support of around 10,000 people online, was soon arrested on charges of conspiring against the government.Not only that, but the government deliberately targeted his education.
And in February 2026, Miles was expelled from his university,the Chinese University of Hong Kong, for speaking up against the authorities,who should have prevented the, fire in the first place rather, than ignoring the numerous reports, from the public concerning dangerous, and illegal building practices.any other people who spoke out, publicly about the deaths and, the government’s failures behind, them were dealt with the same, way.By the end of 2025,the lives of around 4,600 residents had been changed forever.[music] More than,900 families were relocated,and it took the rescue teams, more than a month to track the, DNA remains of every deceased, [music] person.The final death toll that resulted from the 3-day inferno, was announced on January 15th,2026.A total of 168 people died,of whom 10 were foreign domestic, workers and five [music] were, construction workers.And the day after the fire,Hong Kong proved it had known how to prevent it all along.
Inspections [music] were launched at 127 construction sites across the city.Bamboo scaffolding and non-fireproof plastic netting were ordered to be removed,and the government began pushing for bamboo to be replaced with metal.Every one of those measures were available at the time of Mr.lay’s phone calls, Chris’s complaints,and during the 8 days the ICU spent drafting its reply.It took one day to do it after, the fire when 16 months of being, asked wasn’t enough to do it, [music] before.In the end, investigators found no mystery behind what happened at Wongfu Court.The buildings were covered in illegal flammable material.The [music] fire alarms and sprinkler systems were turned off.The fire escapes were compromised.The warnings were documented.But what ultimately caused one, of the deadliest disasters in, Hong Kong’s [music] history was, a government’s failure to act.For more than a year, residents and whistleblowers tried to raise the alarm.They made phone [music] calls, filed complaints,
submitted evidence, and demanded inspections.Yet, their concerns disappeared [music] into a system that simply didn’t care.By the time the authorities finally launched their investigations,168 people had already lost their lives.Today,the black and towers of Wong, Fu Court stand as a reminder, of what two companies were willing, [music] to do for 40 million, Hong Kong dollars, and what every government office Mr.Lelay walked into was unwilling to stop.Countless survivors like Jackie, Chris,Mr.Lei, Veridor,Le Jon-, Ho, and William Lee continue to live on,but the day of the tragedy has left wounds that may never fully heal.Miss Veridor,who descended [music] 17 floors, through smoke and darkness with, a baby and his grandmother,still sees the fire the moment she closes her eyes.William, who lost nearly all of his lifelong belongings,still struggles to speak about, the day [music] he believed he, would never make it out alive.Jackie, who did manage to survive,
still dreams of going back to the place she had called home for decades.For Le Junho,the agony of watching his family, die one by one through a phone, screen [music] is a burden he, will carry for the rest of his, life.And Mr.Yip continues to live with a [music] guilt that has never left him.If he had asked his wife to come downstairs instead, would she still be alive?Yet, these [music] stories are only a small part of a much larger tragedy.Behind every casualty number was a name, a family,a home, and a future that disappeared in the flames.We made this video for the same reason we choose all our topics,[music] because we believed it was a story worth sharing.The only problem with choosing topics based on importance rather than trendiness, is that sometimes the YouTube algorithm, doesn’t agree with your choice.That’s why as a small group of, people who refuse to be bought, out by private equity,we depend on [music] viewers, like you to keep our channel, independent and free to watch.
The first thing you can do is hit the like button.If you’re not already, subscribe to the channel.This helps tell the algorithm, that this video is in [music], fact worth recommending to people.To support us directly,you can go to brewsolves.com where you can click this button to become a member.At $5 a month, you’ll get access to adree versions of our YouTube videos,bonus content, and a 15% discount on merch.Another way you can tell the, algorithm that you like our channel, is to simply watch another video, like this one about how the recent, peer-reviewed, forensic study that proves Kurt Cobain did not die by his own hand.He was murdered.Big thanks to our top tier patrons, Nexus,Xander, Charlie,Hestia system, Preston Spivey,It’s O, and Mr.bullets as well as our other generous members at bruolves.com, for helping to keep this channel going.And thank you for watching and we hope to see you in the next one.