Analysis: How a Hong Kong Tower Became a Death Trap

The deadliest fire in this city’s history has exposed how a ubiquitous feature of its urban landscape—bamboo scaffolding wrapped around buildings under renovation — can transform into a lethal inferno, fueled by a volatile mix of potentially substandard materials, lax oversight, and regulatory gaps.

The five-alarm blaze that tore through the Wang Fuk Court housing estate, killing at least 55 people, wasn’t just a tragic accident. It was the catastrophic result of a fire that behaved in a way that rendered conventional firefighting tactics all but useless, turning the 42-year-old building’s exterior into a vertical chimney of death.