The terrifying escape from a Hong Kong inferno

An unknown number of residents were trapped in the burning building, the officials said. But dozens have been confirmed killed and hundreds were missing on Thursday morning.

Some of those who escaped stood outside around midnight, watching firefighters try to tame the inferno.

“How can I go to sleep while my home is being burned down?” said Sze Kam Sang, a retiree in his 70s, quietly clutching a small cotton blanket and watching the fire in the crowd.

He has been living in Wang Fuk Court for about 40 years and was at a doctor’s appointment when he heard about the fire from his wife, who was working nearby.

He hoped the fire hadn’t wiped out his 19th-floor apartment yet. The lower floors were clearly ablaze.

Sze added that a few small fires had been reported over the years, but not on this scale.

He said the building was undergoing its first major maintenance project in four decades.

It was encased in bamboo scaffolding, which is commonly used in Hong Kong for construction projects.

Loading

Early Thursday, the fire was still burning through the 32-storey apartment towers, sending smoke into the sky.

The bamboo scaffolding cracked and burst with showers of sparks. Dozens of fire trucks and ambulances were parked, their lights blinking.

Lam Chi-Tong, a 71-year-old cleaner, was working in a police station near her home at Wang Fuk Court when she got a call from her son about 4pm on Wednesday to tell her that a nearby building had caught fire.

She hurried back to her complex, only to find that her building, along with others, was also ablaze.

“I’ve lived here for 30 years. I just want to sit here and watch,” she said with a sigh as the fire continued to burn.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.