By: Timothy F. Hamlett
Hong Kong doesn’t usually have disasters. The city is not in an earthquake zone. Typhoons are monitored, and effective precautions limit damage. Flood-prone areas have been fortified, and dangerous slopes stabilized. So when at least 128 people were killed by a fire this week, with 200 still missing – 19 of them Filipina domestic helpers – and with the toll expected to rise, it was a major shock to the system.
The government has declared three days of mourning in what was classified as a five-alarm fire, only the second since the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. Public support flooded in to the extent that further donations have been headed off. Tycoons and businesses have donated to a fund to help surviving victims, some of whom have lived in the subsidized public housing estate since it was built in 1983. Nearly 40 percent are at least 65 or older.
Cherchez the culprits
Along with the moving display of public solidarity has come the unmistakable sound of herrings being painted red, the buck being maneuvered into the passing lane, and the doors of empty stables being resoundingly bolted.
While fire-fighting was still in progress, the police announced that they had cracked the case. Three senior officers of a construction firm had been arrested and charged with manslaughter. Not to be outdone, Hong Kong’s graft specialists, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, announced eight arrests of more humble participants in work on the afflicted seven-tower estate, Wang Fuk Court.
The Labour Department announced an upcoming investigation into worker safety on the estate. The Buildings Department promised a probe into possible violations of the Buildings Ordinance.
The question remains: how could a fire spread so quickly from one building to another five?
Among the suspects was a Hong Kong icon, bamboo scaffolding.
This has been a feature of the city for many years. Bamboo poles bound together at junctions with plastic tape are used in construction jobs of all kinds, including high-rise construction. Technically it is a brilliant solution, lighter and cheaper than steel poles. But the government is in the process of phasing it out, at least on its own projects, not because of fire risks but in the hope of reducing the casualty rate among scaffolding workers, who resemble high-wire daredevils putting the scaffolding together.
Wang Fuk Court was what was known in the 1980s as a Home Ownership Project. These were estates of small flats in large high-rise blocks, in the Tai Po area, intended as starter homes for people living in substandard accommodation. They were much in demand and you had to win a ballot to buy one.
The pioneering HOS estates are now reaching an age where they need complete replacement of the outside tiles. This is a major project which is done on an estate-wide basis and starts by charging each flat owner some HK$100,000 or more to finance the work.
The entire estate is then covered in bamboo scaffolding, in turn supporting plastic netting to catch falling debris. The offending tiles are removed. This inevitably discloses some places where the underlying concrete has deteriorated and has to be fixed by a specialist contractor. Then each block is retiled.
The whole process commonly takes three years, during which residents might as well be living on a building site. This sort of job does not require the capital or technical skills involved in construction from scratch and seems to attract building firms you have never heard of before.
Pungent rumors about the tendering process abound.
Whatever the merits of bamboo scaffolding for construction – minor fires on newbuild sites are reportedly quite common – there will no doubt be some consideration of whether it is a good idea for existing closely-spaced 30-story blocks to be wrapped in flammable wood and plastic for three years, and with the windows sealed with flammable polystyrene for more than a year as well.
At the risk of annoying the real estate industry, there may also be some return visit to the idea – publicly articulated by actor Steve McQueen at the end of movie The Towering Inferno – that modern fire-fighting technology peters out at about the 15th floor. Above that, you’re on your own.