A massive fire at Wang Fuk Court in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong erupted on Wednesday afternoon, quickly spreading through multiple high rise residential buildings with bamboo scaffolding, trapping hundreds of residents, triggering mass panic, overwhelming firefighters, killing at least 55 people, injuring many others.
In the latest Reuters News report at least 55 people have been confirmed killed with hundreds still missing. The complex housed 4,600 apartments and was undergoing renovations. The 31 story buildings were covered in nylon mesh and bamboo scaffolding, with reports of foam insulation sprayed on the outside of the windows.
As the fire spread, the construction mesh and bamboo became ablaze and triggered fallout on the surrounding buildings, spreading the fire throughout the complex. The fire entered the buildings trapping many residents on the upper floors as the horrific inferno spread.
The videos and still images are terrible. 24 hours later and the heat inside the buildings is too intense for firefighters conducting search and rescue efforts. An absolute nightmare for those who lived in the buildings.
.
.
Dear God, bring these grieving families to Your throne of comfort. Their pain is unimaginable as they anguish the loss of their loved ones. Father of mercy and comfort wrap Your loving arms around them. Help them to breathe and overcome the choking knot of despair in their throat. Please provide strength for their continued faith in You even through this unfathomable pain. Lavish them with Your love and fill the void in their crushed and broken hearts.
In Jesus’ powerful name, I believe and pray.
Amen.
Bamboo?
Bamboo scaffolding and plastic sheeting…… 😳. (per the Fire Chief)
Near-perfect combo of flammables exactly where they should never have been permitted
Plus foam insulation, which is extremely flammable.
This.
The “fire stop” spray foams, that many US municipalities and the NEC now require in today’s in-wall electrical work? Yes, it is flammable, too.
Bring back asbestos. With safe handling practices, it still works the best.
And toxic whdn it burns
Asbestos is not combustible and does not become “toxic” when heated or immersed in flame.
It “may” become more likely to emit fibers, depending on the physical properties of the style of the material. For example, floor tiles or exterior shingles will not. But soft pipe insulation will.
Key word for Asbestos is friable.
JoAnn’s reference was to “foam insulation”. It is best to digest what you read. lol
Produces cyanides.
The CCP say the Chinese Communists are smarter than the stupid Americans.
I believe the correct dichotomy is human life has little value in china.
Of course they do.
Polyesters, etc…carpet furniture…create toxic smoke–with phosgene, I think…
And polyesters melt and drip.
Remember, the Port Authority of NY, going back at least to 1993, had been pursuing a program of removing ALL the asbestos coating from the entire internal steel skeleton of both World Trade Center Towers, and replacing it with spray on foam insulation. By September 11, 2001, I expect all, or almost all, of the asbestos had been removed and replaced. Was it replaced with a flammable foam?
From what I remember the asbestos removal program was still ongoing on September 11, 2001 and in a remarkable, or perhaps convenient, coincidence at least one and possibly both towers were struck in areas where asbestos removal was complete but the replacement materials had yet to be installed.
I always wondered about that. As I recall, they would strip several floors at a time, leaving the steel bare, then come in after and spray the foam on them. They were very proud of their asbestos elimination. Gave me a tour of their removal operations. I don’t think any of those guys made it.
That is my understanding of the process as well. In fact, I believe there is footage available of stripped areas available online for anyone curious what such an area would have looked like. Might have been documentation for insurance or something similar. As to the fates of the workers I have no idea.
I attended grade school in NYC in the early 1990s and at the time there was a massive initiative to remove asbestos from public buildings. In fact, if my memory is correct one year the beginning of the school year was delayed a week due to asbestos removal at several schools. The Port Authority was likely following this initiative and it is not surprising such projects were incomplete in 2001. The scale of the project would have been massive and involved additional locations outside of the WTC complex.
I’m not sure that would have mattered. Each plane weighed between 350,000 and 500,000 lbs, struck the uppermost floors, and burning jet fuel ran down the elevator shafts, blew out the lobby windows and any people there. Could anything have protected the steel structure from that?
I don’t think it would have mattered either, but the facts are what they are.
Does jet fuel burn hot enough to melt steel?
Thank you. The lack of knowledge of physics is shocking.
How do aluminum plane wings cut through steel? Or concrete?
Buehler,Buehler?
The jet fuel aka kerosene was gone in seconds. Then what do you have?
Everything flammable in the offices.
Those planes were fully fueled for cross country flights, each carrying maybe 30,000 to 50,000 gallons. The fuel would not have been “gone in seconds”.
Those planes struck with the force of 350,000 to 500,000 pounds × their airspeed, into structures that had narrow vertical members and lots of glass.
If a hurricane can ram 2x4s through a cement-fiber clad house-wall, yes a jumbo-jet flying four times as fast and weighing so much more, can shear through the outer wall of a skyscraper.
There are images from other hurricanes of sheets of plywood shearing through walls edgewise or of wooden beams punching through cement curbs. Speed kills.
So much for “knowledge of physics”.
Maybe the speed of the plane helped the wings cut through. I know this is a bad comparison, but you can put a drinking straw through the middle of a raw potato if you do it fast and in one motion.
It doesn’t have to ‘melt’ it. The combined fire load inside the offices simply has to weaken the steel to the point where the connections (that left the office area clear of support structures) at each end failed. End connections fail = floors begin to collapse.
Exactly. Softening starts about 2000⁰ F. Any deformation of the structural members or the fasteners, especially lower in the structure, would have been enough. And those fires burned for awhile: from impact to collapse, 30,000 to 50,000 gallons of jet fuel.
It’s the temperature of softening that is important, especially low enough down the structure. Steel softens about 2000⁰ F to 2200⁰ F.
The typical flame temperature ranges for jet fuel burning in air are approximately 980°C to 1200°C (1800°F to 2200°F). In open-air conditions, the burn temperature for Jet A and Jet A-1 can be around 1,030°C (1,890°F).
Add the weight of the building plus a plane near the top, and any deformation due to softening of the steel near the bottom of the structure, will be catastrophic.
someone needs to explain this to the myriad 9/11 conspiracy theorists
Yes.
No, probably not.
Hindustan Times link says that foam boards were covering windows, which was “highly unusual”
Also that 1/3 of residents were elderly. This is a public housing establishment?
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/hong-kong-tai-po-fire-live-updates-death-toll-count-fire-reason-all-you-need-to-know-101764222563593.html
There ARE different types of foam insulation, some more flammable than others.
I’m well aware. The problem with any foam insulation is that the vast majority of it is manufactured in mainland China, where the manufacturing process is often substandard and corrupt. Thus highly combustible foams, fraudulently marketed as non-combustible, enter the market.
In the wake of the Grenville fire someone tested multiple foams that were not supposed to burn.
They all burned.
This is not a new problem. The deadliest structural fire in American history was the 1903 Iroquois Theater Fire. The stage curtains were allegedly treated with asbestos and were considered fire-proof.
The curtains burned.
GB Bari: “Bamboo scaffolding and plastic sheeting…… https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/svg/1f633.svg. (per the Fire Chief) Near-perfect combo of flammables exactly where they should never have been permitted.”
And placed in a vertical orientation, which promotes a fire to spread rapidly upward if one gets started somehow, as is much more likely when construction work is being done. Whoever put their signature on the permits for this work is guilty of murder.
Yes. Couldn’t have been more perfect to feed a fast inferno. In summer camp (way back when….) we made a “log cabin” bonfire by stacking logs like the walls of a log cabin are stacked, and lots of tinder in the middle to get it started fast. Hong Kong scaffolding was essentially a 31-story bonfire…
GB I was in China before the 2008 Olympics adopting a granddaughter. All around where construction was going on there was bamboo scaffolding. It is very common in China. It was in summer and very hot. In order to keep the AC on in your room you had to put your room key card in a slot. Being the southern girl I am I used my Library card to keep the AC on if we went out. There were signs in the rooms to not drink the water. The room was furnished with bottled water. Granddaughter will be 22 in February.
The codes probably allowed bamboo
They do. In high winds of typhoons in that area, metal scaffolding becomes a weapon.
And bamboo scaffolding wouldn’t be a weapon in high winds?
I imagine a 200mph piece of bamboo is no picnic either.
Codes?
Building codes?
Such codes are are for sissies in Communist China!
You are correct. Tomorrow, November 28th will be the 83rd anniversary of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub disaster where nearly 500 perished in a fire that caused the establishment of the public standards for banning flammable materials as decorations from public places among other fire and safety codes in the U.S.A. Very sadly, these events still take place.
Bamboo has been used for scaffolding throughout Asia since multistory buldings have been erected.
So in other words, they were wayyyyyy overdue for a disaster……
It’s actually quite strong, and more adaptable to various building shapes. I actually had this explained to me by an Asian builder several years ago.
A s it’s cheap and plentiful. Sadly also flammable.
Wasn’t there a multistory apartment building in England that had fire propagate through the outer sheathing, a few years ago?
Yes. They called it “cladding” I believe. It was a terrible tragedy.
Grenfell Towers
Cladding was highly inflammable
Give me a house/tent/shack/caravan/RV on LAND ANYTIME
and the CCP says that they are way smarter and superior to everyone else.
Bamboo plus nylon sheeting plus inside corner on exterior of building: a perfect chimney. A 20 or 30 story blow torch.
Yup
With all due respect and sympathy to the victims, 24 hours of that and none of those buildings collapsed…
Perplexing?
I guess the CIA didn’t get there in time
Or they used a defective batch of Chinese knockoff thermite that just burned and didn’t blow out the supports like it was supposed to.
They’re here looking for evidence
A raging inferno at that.
Perplexing?
Not really, considering the fact that the buildings themselves were not constructed of bamboo. Probably mostly steel and concrete, which doesn’t burn. However curtains, blinds, and furniture near windows was probably affected in most of the affected buildings.
I was being sarcastic – we all know burning steel and concrete buildings don’t fall down into their own footprint unless they are “pulled”, as well-respected New York real-estate and building mogul DJT mentioned during an interview on that topic in early September, 2001.
Chinese steel no less!
Hmmmmm
many have noticed.
Just doing my part as instructed by our taxpayer-dollar funded awareness campaign:
Guessing there were no sprinklers in the buildings either.
Would not have mattered. Exterior flame spread was the problem.
It would matter if the flames got through windows and set window treatments and furniture on fire.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t any, but in any case sprinklers are going to be of minimal value in such an instance.
Sprinklers are not designed to put out fires, they are designed suppress fires and delay them from growing hot enough and large enough to create a lethal environment and allow time for evacuation
In the case of these sorts of fires, the fuel feeding the fire is outside the building. These fires build and spread extremely quickly. Suppression systems will be quickly overwhelmed.
What could go wrong? /s.
Yes, bamboo poles secured with a twine made from the bamboo as well. It bends with the wind and apparently withstands the typhoon storms better. My aunt and uncle lived in Hong Kong in the 1980’s and you could see this on all the new buildings under construction.
Yes, from around 1986 through the return of Hong Kong to the chinese in 1998, I went to Hong Kong at least 2-3 times a year and there was always a building with this mesh and bamboo scaffolding.
New buildings being constructed always had bamboo scaffolding, never the type of scaffolding you see here in the US. I would just shake my head in disbelief!
We had an apartment in Hong Kong as well and they were very nice apartments, but since they were all high rise, I really did not feel terribly safe while occuping it.
I always felt safer in the hotels, as they did not have the many floors that were the usual for the apartments they built.
Addendum: With the takeover of the chinese, I am quite certain that the standards have greatly decreased for building. Safety is probably not at the top of the list. They just want to get them built and occupied, as there were a lot of factories built in what was known as the New Territories, directly across the chinese border on the main land across from Hong Kong Island.
I am praying for all the families that have been touched by these tragic fires.
This has been the norm for most of Asia. Singapore doesn’t allow this and has building restrictions more onerous than those imposed by US OSHA.
Singapore is one of the better Asian countries as far as strict rules and regulations. And it is also, or was at one time, a very clean place.
The aluminum cladding issues I highlighted below are largely due to substandard and fraudulent Chinese manufacturers. These materials all exported all over the world. There has been a particular problem in the Gulf States as a result of their building boom.
The source of the problem is Chinese, but the problem is global. I would be shocked if there were not several ticking time bombs here in the US, particularly in regards to high-density public housing projects where the construction corruption is rampant.
I recall, back in the 1990s, toxic drywall from China was a huge problem.
The “new” Oakland Bay Bridge span with all those superior bolts. Not
I agree keeler, and it is unfortunate that there probably more than several ticking time bombs here. Thank you “demon”crats and worthless publi”cants.”
Hope your Thanksgiving was blessed and wonderful and your weekend is as well.
Watch any Jackie Chan movie made in Hong Kong. He often uses bamboo scaffolding to stage fight scenes.
Bamboo is very resilient and strong. Yet, sadly, it is also combustible.
Prayers for those caught in the fires.
Plus bamboo grows quickly in 1-2 years so is pretty renewable.
I use bamboo made into toilet paper. Takes < 1 gallon per roll and no wood to make and regrows in 1-2 years.
Tree paper takes 1.5 pounds of wood plus 37 gallons of water per roll and takes 30 years to grow.
Trees are the most precious commodity in the universe. Nothing compares.
As soon as you enter, look for your ways to escape…whether it’s a tall building or a
crowded restaurant. Your Back to the wall.
I’m not much fun in crowded room. You’ll probably find me near an exit, sober.
This is good advice for any building or structure of any size with a large number of occupants including hospitals, stadiums, reception and banquet halls, churches, airport terminals, cruise ships, etc.
Crowd crushes and jams typically kill far more people than the fire, structural failure, or attackers do. Always identify alternative exits and plan on using them. The vast majority of panicked people will instinctively attempt to evacuate through their entrance point. That is when and where people die.
Who remembers about ten or twenty years ago that twelve story aprrnent building that just tipped over like a chopped tree with people in it? It turns out all they had for a foundation were several 15 foot pilings attached to the bottom of the building. It rained a few days, ground turned to mud and disaster struck.
and the buildings are still standing? 🤔 🤫
yes…amazing that even under intense heat, steel structure building still standing…makes one question things….
SMH, completely polar construction methods, but hey, insinuation understood.
“Wang Fuk Court”
They named it, I didn’t.
<“Wang Fuk Court”…They named it, I didn’t.>
I can’t believe they used the word ‘Court’ 🙂
They used to be a colony of the UK and I suppose they still speak some English there.
I saw it in S. Korea. Typical far eastern construction techniques.
One day on a trip to Seoul, I watched guys climb up at least ten levels of bamboo scaffolding carrying one concrete block each.
I also saw guys with wooden boxes on their backs. Each box had a trap door on the bottom. The guys would fill the boxes with fresh concrete and carry it up the scaffolding, pull a string and dump the ‘crete. Climb back down, repeat.
I worked construction before I joined the Army. I never saw anything like that on any jobsite I was on. But, I saw it multiple times in multiple places in Korea.
A large department store collapsed in Seoul when I was there. People were killed. The contractor fled the country, I believe. Taking bribes and kickbacks and substituting inferior materials to save money are how they operate there.
This was all in 1990-1990.
I worked construction in So Fla during the 70’s, was in the scaffolding business,,,,,,this makes me ill,even metal scaffolding is sketchy at times, can’t imagine this at all
Many years before you were overseas, I had an American Teacher in a Junior College Trade School >claim, “Many tall buildings in other countries were built >without steel girder framing or the use of >rebar [metal bar] in the concrete.” … He said, “The collapse of tall structures during earthquakes in other countries is due to lack of strength built into the buildings.” [Of course, if the earthquake is big enough, everything comes down!]
I also learned the great strength in concrete is due to concrete’s ability to ‘grip’ metal, brick, and stone, and to withstand immense compression. [The Roman Empire used the ‘gripping’ power of concrete to build their amazing structures long ago. The Pantheon is still used today.]
The Twin Towers built in New York City had a unique modern design. The metal and joints were NOT designed to withstand strikes from Jet Liners loaded with fuel, and the subsequent fires. … Our public broadcasting stations had a program with the famous architect of the buildings and >engineers discussing the design of the buildings. There was also a discussion about the design of the Twin Towers compared to the older buildings, such as the Empire State Buildings.
It was an excellent and informative program from PBS, which I’m sure the PBS crew diligently searched for evidence that President George Bush ‘sneaked’ into the buildings late at night with a backpack of explosives to cause the Twin Towers to ‘pancake’ during the disaster. … It was the basic unique and innovative design of the buildings that result in the ‘pancaking’ of the buildings.
******************************************
As a personal story, an old geezer told me a story about a contractor that paid off building inspectors and politicians in my County. … The contractor simply mixed much more >sand in the concrete [sand is cheaper]. … The structure after 10 years started blowing away in a strong wind. The structure also developed many-many cracks in the concrete. … +This happened long before anyone here was even born. [The structure had to be rebuilt.]
…….. God Bless American as we still live in Great Country where most people are still >honest.
How does 1500 degree burn point jet fuel melt steel girders with a melt point of 2500 degrees?
Maybe makes up for the temperature lack with volume?
Lol, it didn’t melt girders , it melted the 3/8 inch bolts holding the floor trusses to the exoskeleton. Not rocket science, just cold hard engineering.
It’s not true that the only thing holding the floors up were 3/8 inch bolts.
I gather you are neither an architect nor a structural engineer. You are just listening to the IC lies.
Stu, if you are a structural engineer, please post an informative explanation about the collapse of the buildings.
Anyone ‘just believing’ in a government coverup of a Twin Tower collapse and a conspiracy, should at least belong to a citizen gun-rights group such as the NRA, National Rifle Association. … +They should be working towards making taxes to the Federal Government voluntary, and a massive reduction in the size of our Federal Government.
**********************************
There is an informative article about the collapse of the Twin Towers at >The Conversation, ‘9/11 conspiracy theories debunked: 20 years later, engineering experts explain how the twin towers collapsed’ September, 08, 2021.< I’m not an engineer, but I enjoy how experts can give reasonable explanations about particular events. [There are plenty of ‘expert’ written articles available about the Twin Towers.
+I do believe people, especially now days, should own at least one gun and belong to the NRA or a similar gun-rights organization. …. God Bless Donald J Trump for working to reduce the size of our Federal Government, and trying to stop the endless and useless wars.
It doesn’t have to melt the steel, only get it hot enough to weaken it.
Similar principle to a blacksmith. They don’t melt the steel. They heat it enough to be able to easily bend it or work it with a hammer.
An over simplification, but you get the idea.
You might enjoy reading Dr. Judy Wood’s book, “Where Did the Towers Go”. Dr. Wood is a Materials Engineer who researched and taught at Virginia Tech.
Enlightening.
coined a term to describe the unique destruction – Dustification.
– don’t dwell on the unique new word, consider the uniqueness of what happened, both during the event and afterwards with the secrecy of the clean-up.
She implies a secret technology. Crazy? no.
“Considering the very nature of the case and all of the evidence presented in this book so far, it is impossible not to conclude that the destruction of the World Trade Center towers came about through a form of >directed energy technology. That is, the destruction was caused by energy that is directed and used as a weapon, as in the phrase Directed Energy Weaponry, or DEW.” page 475.
[From Dr. Judy Wood’s book, ‘Where Did the Towers Go.” which can be read for >free on the Internet Archive.]
****************************************************
Me, GGHD, I posted the ‘money quote’ from the book by Dr. Judy Wood. … There is no source >given for such an ‘energy weapon’ being used or developed by >our government or an >enemy of the USA people. … At the moment the book is speculation. The book, though, is very persuasive as it’s written to convince a reader without a background in the building’s design, and any understanding of the materials in the buildings’ construction.
I’ll, GGHD, will just respond to anyone that accepts such explanations from Dr. Wood, we need (as a country):
A) to explore the immediate >reduction in size of our Federal Government.
B) ensure the full application of our 2nd amendment rights to all honest citizens. The USA needs to abrogate the laws that nullify our gun rights.
C) we as a country need more transparency laws about the ‘research and testing’ that is occurring in both weapons and medical treatments.
****
In our political system in America, there is rarely a leftwinger that wants to reduce the size of government or expand or Constitutional Rights in regard to firearms.
My brother visited mainland China some years ago and saw similar bamboo scaffolds around high rise buildings: wobbly, incompetently designed and constructed, and almost designed to kill the workers and reduce the population.
During his visit, some of the scaffolding did indeed collapse, and it did indeed kill dozens of workers.
A day or two later, the same kind of scaffolding was being re-erected!!!
Life is cheap….in Communist China !!!
Tofu-Dreg projects
bamboo scaffolding is common.
talk about throwing a match in gasoline.
paper houses?
Bamboo is incredibly strong. Bamboo scaffolding is everywhere in the city for highrise building. They lash it together.
Balsa Wood is slightly more expensive.
bamboo scaffolding is very common in Hong Kong construction — for decades.
“Wang Fuk Court”
With a name like that, well……………………..
“foam insulation sprayed on the outside of the windows”???
Maybe the truth got lost in translation.
I suspect this is referring to foam insulation used in the installation of aluminum cladding.
Praying 🙏
High rise buildings by U.S. codes must be of non combustible construction materials including exterior fascade. Further, they must have enclosed fire rated exit stairways with self closing fire rated doors.
I cannot attest to building code requirements in Hong Kong.
UK really screwed this one up. Panama Canal level.
Are you saying transferring HK to China was a mistake?
Some of it was permanently ceded to UK, and some of it was leased. Hard to separate the parts.
Also, UK, France, Dutch, etc lost all credibility as colonial powers when Japan swept the Pacific in 1941-1942. And after the war they grew incapable of supporting an empire.
Also, who is responsible for the lack of decent rules? One Country Two Systems is in place until 2047, though China seems to be muscling through the transition to One System a bit early. Were the rules ever up to western standards? Or has China degraded them?
UK had a high rise fire spread through flammable insulation in cladding as recently as 2017. But they didn’t ban the cladding until 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-61654246
Not a mistake…deliberate.
Hong Kong passport holders were promised British ones, which of course never happened.
We were ensconced in Wales at the time and watched (now) Lord Patton disgracefully hand over the HK keys to the Chinese, treaty or no. Hard to put into words our emotions watching it…except to say we felt a distinct unease and sense of betrayal on behalf of the Hong Kong people who knew their quiet and prosperous lives were on the cusp of changing forever.
Same feelings as those which overwhelmed us on the night champagne corks were popped all over Europe, strains of “Ode to Joy” flowing everywhere as celebrations of EU permanence and the end of each member country’s sovereignty were toasted.
Exactly the same.
Yes Betsy, it broke my heart to see it get turned over to China. I knew deep in my heart it would go to “he– in a handbasket” quickly and the chinese would not keep their end of the bargain to keep two systems going.
I spent a lot of time in Hong Kong from 1986 to 1998. We had an apartment for awhile as well. Dearly loved the people and the wonderful British customs that they kept, especially high tea. We had quite a few very good friends, Chinese and British.
Lost touch with all of them after the turnover, especially the Chinese friends. They were very cautious when communicating with us as they knew that they were being monitored, so friendships were lost.
I pray for them all that I knew from my business trips there. I hang on to the hope they got out of there safely, but really have no idea.
It’s the not knowing, Pat, when you think of them…which I’m sure is often…that I know brings an ache to your heart. I’m certain you’ve made up a few of your own stories. I pray they were able to escape…a terrible word to use when one considers how wonderful and free Hong Kong once was.
The same happened when the British abandoned Rhodesia. White farmers there were being hideously murdered. And when their farmer friends asked for refuge through visas, the British government shunned them. A grotesque irony considering the tens of thousands of Muslims from Africa they have invited in and are catering for at the expense of persecuted Brits in the UK.
There was no decency or honour in the British panjandrums when they hurriedly abandoned their Hong Kong protectorate. Some things never change.
I am deeply sorry for your friends… and for you, dear friend, for the loss of your connection with them.
Hong Kong Island was permanently ceded to the UK. The.Kowloon peninsula and the “ New Territories” were part of the original 99 year lease. There’s no way that the authorities in China were going to allow the UK to continue to govern Hong Kong Island. The Chinese we’re going to take it back one way or another.
“High rise buildings by U.S. codes must be of non combustible construction materials including exterior fascade.”
While that is true in recent years aluminum-side cladding has become a trendy option as an exterior facades, especially for use skyscrapers and ultra-tall skyscrapers. The aluminum cladding itself is not combustible, but the insulation materials often contain extremely combustible materials such as polyurethane foams. These materials are supposed to be made fire-resistant, but poor quality control and fraud in the manufacturing process combined with poor maintenance has led to multiple fires in high-rise buildings, including the deadly Grenfell Tower Fire in 2017.
Any building constructed in the US in the last 15-20 years which has aluminum clad siding is, in my opinion, at risk and as I warned at the time of the Grenfell fire anyone who is living or has loved ones living in such a building should investigate the matter.
The freak kitchen fire, finding an open window was all it took to get that exterior cladding ablaze. And then the residents were ordered to shelter in place while it spread around the sides like a deadly embrace.
I guess golden-age and workforce zoned (four story maximum height) isn’t covered by the high-rise codes you cited.
But it should be. Very cheap construction.
Thank you, Sundance, for the beautiful prayer. I join with you in praying for these people. 🙏🏻🙏🏻
I do too 🙏Amen.
Sundance knows the Heavenly Father. Thus the spirit filled prayer. It’s why I linger here.
That prayer is a keeper.
Nothing says communists running things is a success like hundreds of casualties and the cover up to come.
Maybe everything they touch is toxic and has the potential for disaster, yet the western political class is embracing communism.
they just want the useless eaters dead
I was in Hong Kong over 30 years ago and saw the scaffolding on buildings over 100 stories high. I often wondered what would happen if the people on the 90th floor needed to evacuate without the elevators working. Now I know, they can’t get out of there. It is horrible.
So sad.
May God bring comfort, strength and healing to those who are suffering in Hong Kong.
I pray in the precious name of Jesus Christ, my risen Lord and Savior.
Amen
Exactly why there should never be buildings that tall…ever. and bamboo scaffolding? They were under renovation and I’m sure they wrapped it in bamboo and green plastic for appearance, nothing like ugly old buildings being renovated against a beautiful skyline. Some say windows were sealed. I will never ever live in a building that tall.
How very sad. Prayers for the families and the people lost in this horrific mess.
I’ll live in a tent in the woods before I’ll live in one. My heart breaks for these people. Dear Lord give them comfort and relief from their Godless government.
I live in the middle of three levels and can barely sleep in peace. It’s LA County, soooo…
I would never live in a high rise building. They are death traps.
Years ago my Navy frigate pulled into Hong Kong. It was a common port visit in those days. Walking around it seemed like those bamboo with mesh scaffolding were everywhere.
In the late 1950’s, my uncle was a special metals welder working mostly on DOD projects of one kind or another. He was working inside a missile silo then under construction whose vertical walls had been lined with spray-on insulation. He expressed his concerns about the fire hazards of this foam insulation and was told that it couldn’t burn. A few days later, a spark from a welding torch set the foam on fire. The construction crew barely got out before the entire silo went up in a massive pillar of flame. The final report on the fire said it wasn’t the foam insulation which had burned. (Yeah, right.)
Send the rain Lord! Praying for Hong Kong
Oh Lord, please help the survivors, and bring comfort to the families of the victims.
One skyscraper then caught all of the surrounding skyscrapers on fire too.
Bamboo frame engulfed in flames is still standing. Steel framed buildings without even having flames coming out of their windows on 9/11 collapsed.
Amen.
I spent this summer and fall stacking and burning dead, dry bamboo.
It’s the perfect kindling, lights easily and being hollow, maximum surface area for fast, hot burning.
Stupid construction material, even if it’s only temporary.
We had a place in our first-in that had some bamboo in a vacant field. It caught fire one day, that bamboo sure puts off some BTU’s!!!!
I’d be curious if that had sprinkler requirements, although there may have been enough heat with the bamboo and nylon to overcome the sprinkler system.
I took a class from a retired Philadelphia battalion chief and he talked about a high rise fire in Philadelphia that started when a section of floors had the sprinklers turned off for maintenance/contrcution. A single sprinkler on the first floor above that had an active sprinkler system stopped the forward spread.
Building standards and fire protection systems work only when extra stuff is done or deleted.
It goes to show that it’s a gamble when traveling outside the US staying in low-, mid- and high-rise accommodations unless you are aware of the building codes and adherence to them.
Look at the Miami condo collapse as an example that even having codes in place doesn’t matter unless they’re followed.
There’s a 7 storing condo but in the 80’s within then jurisdiction of the fire department I worked for that has no sprinklers because of a payoff to those that signed off by the builder.
So did the building have stand pipes and hoses?
Yes, standpipes but they were allowed to forego sprinklers which were required. Never had a working fire, but that battalion trains all the time for it because that’s the most likely “high-rise” fire we would encounter.
Corruption is at all levels and has long-term consequences.
“Look at the Miami condo collapse as an example that even having codes in place doesn’t matter unless they’re followed.”
That’s the classic cycle of fire safety:
Mass-casualty fire leads to new or updated codes, updated codes and luck prevent mass-casualty fires, oversight grows lax and codes are not enforced, resulting in a mass-casualty fire…
Lord have mercy on these poor souls.
So, were these the “low-income” senior pensioner apartments?
Seems like a perfect Chinese process for removing elderly useless eaters from the government dole.
In one interview a man claimed his neighbor’s family, which included a dependent senior and a child, was missing.
AMEN
Amen.
Father God,
You Are The Maker of Heaven and earth. Each human intricately woven in our mother’s womb by Your Design in Your Image.
Accept these souls into Your Kingdom and may we remember that not a hair falls from our head without Your Divine Knowledge and Accounting.
Bring Mercy, Peace, and Justice, Father God. We need You so very much. Break every stronghold and may every person see Your Glory and accept Your Gift of Eternal Salvation through Christ Jesus.
May those who create danger, death, trauma, and calamity find Your Swift Justice. fear does not come from God.
In Jesus’s Holy and Saving Name, AMEN
Oh Jesus be with those families, I pray in Your Holy Name, Amen.
Horrible.
The Towering Inferno was not a movie. It was a warning.
Gigantic chimneys when they get started.
“Corruption has long been a threat to China’s social stability, its economic development, and even the legitimacy of the regime” -Ting Gong and Wenyan Tu.
After the PRC hired organized crime triad goons to subdue the Hong Kong population ahead of their subjugation of the island and related territory, it was clear that happy was going away for the 7.5 million people that live there.
I’m not going to say that the subsequent chaos and corruption on display in Hong Kong are on the level of New York City fire truck crews fighting each other over who would receive the money for fighting the fire in the mid-nineteenth century; however, it’s bad there.
Would you say that England or Hong Kong is more tyrannical with respect to being arrested for free speech today? I’d say Hong Kong but England has been working hard to match Hong Kong over the past decade and shows no sign of turning around.
https://www.cna.org/quick-looks/2023/China-national-security-laws-implications-beyond-borders.pdf
Amen🙏🙏🙏
The tragedy has rallied the city’s residents to help those affected, with many donating clothes, goods and food. Others gave blood or opened their homes. Several hotel chains have also offered rooms for affected residents with nowhere to stay.
When will the building collapse and fall into its own footprint?
Only happens in New York.
No sprinklers no rescue helicopters or maybe drones RIP victims use their memory as inspiration to develop firebots and ‘iron man’ suits for firefighters to where they can walk into hell and eat ice cream while doing the nasty dance pretty much
Amen to your prayer Sundance!!! UNIMAGINABLE!!
Horrific! I’m surprised we don’t see more of these catastrophic fires here in the states, with all the high-density firetraps they’ve been slapping up everywhere.
I’m surprised that fire departments can approve those cheap wood trusses that are highly flammable. With hundreds of tenants it only takes one fire to spread quickly through these tinderboxes.
My prayers are with the poor people devastated by the Hong Kong fire.
If you tune in Atlanta local news, there’s hardly a day goes by where there isn’t an apartment fire.
A local newscaster even had a blog : Live Atlanta Apartment fire.
Years ago I was introduced to a person who was in the renovation business for apartment and
condo units. Her health was failing, and she was closing down the company. I asked her about the
sheer number of apartment fires that I noticed on the news, and she rolled her eyes.
“What I saw happen” she said “was that my company would go to collect on work done on a few
units on a given complex. They’d find a vacant unit, load all the records into it, and set a fire. Then
they’d go into foreclosure.” She said that she’d encountered numerous instances of the fires happening.
I was investigating commercial foreclosure fraud/ bond Low Instance Housing tax credit refinance
at the time. I named some streets where I saw a lot of activity in my county. She named additional
ones in Clayton and South Fulton (lots of activity near the airport). Some of the complexes in
different counties were owned by the same investment firms. None of the locations named
surprised either of us as we were talking.
For awhile I did some research on fires. Frequently ,( not in every instance) , the following pattern
occurred. A fire in a given complex. (location noted by YTG). If located in Dekalb, a few months later
the location would appear in the local legal organ under “commercial foreclosures.” And, shortly
thereafter another notice would appear in the legal organ: “Notice of bond hearing for the Dekalb
County Housing Authority”. Which would be a refinance for Low Income Affordable Housing tax
credits.
Quit following them because child # 2 came along. But if anyone else has noticed similar occurrences
in your area, I’ve just given you the template to follow, should you choose to use it.
God bless and protect those poor people. Amen.
Amen!
Amen.
In addition to the bamboo and netting ,the foam insulation would be another accelerant.
This is unbelievably unbearable to watch. And does bring back the horror and disbelief reminiscent of the WTC fires. Amen to Sundance’s prayer. May God have mercy on these souls.
I suppose that this is considered one of the “benefits” of stack ‘em & pack ‘em to the global elites.
There’s no wondering why Governor Newscum in California is working with his Chinese partners to get “high rise” apartments built where thousands of houses burned down in the Palisades fires.
Of course, profitability is always a factor. Evil people thrive on financial gain from physical pain…. as long as it’s not their own pain.
My wife and I are praying for these innocent Hong Kong folks.
This reminds me of the 2017 Grenfell fire in the UK
The cause of this fire reminds me of my days as an expat in Turkey. Just to give an idea of the likely cause of the blaze…
Next door to the building where I worked, there were 2-multi story buildings under construction. Before the walls of the buildings were added .. one could see that each floor of the building was a steel reinforced concrete slab and the slabs were held up (and separated) by Bundles of Cut Trees as well as Bundles of Timbers … the steel-rod reinforced concrete pillars had not yet been been poured.
The Constructions Crews LIVED in the buildings under construction and used OPEN Flames to heat and cook. The open flames were from gas stoves as well as open 55-gallon barrels … more than few times the wooden piers caught fire and the fires were put out before spreading to stuff being used as housing by the crews and the other wooden piers.
If the piers and other stuff got to burning .. not hard to imagine the fire quickly spreading in an urban area as tightly packed as a China Inc. City.
I was in Hong Kong a few years ago and marveled THEN that they were using Bamboo scaffolding. The buildings are huge- I feel sick for these poor people stuck. Burning to death. My heart breaks.
Amen.
Fully engulfed in fire and none crumbled into their foundation
Yeah, I don’t think the CIA were involved in this particular case.
How many had a full load of jet fuel delivered to the spine of the building…?
Having been in Taiwan many times, and watched construction workers there, I imagine that these fires were likely a result of the carelessness of smokers… I never saw a worker without a cigarette. What a horrible way to die.
It’s also possible this was a welding-ignited fire. That’s what happened to Notre Dame.
I pray for all theses souls. RIP.
On a side note, I would have expected these high rise building to collapse similar to a controlled demolition.
No cooki flied lice on scaffolding
Lord have mercy – I’m scared of tall buildings for a lot of reasons – no good quick escape being one.
Amen, Sundance. I cannot imagine the despair and trauma of those poor people. 🙏
Amen.
The smoke alone has likely claimed hundreds of souls.
The flames are horrific!!!
Flammable bamboo, plastic sheet and foam insulation … surely this can not be laid at the feet of ignorance, nor incompetence. This is premeditated criminal negligence.
Sounds like this was intentional. Just like the chickens.