Is Hong Kong ‘fiddling while Rome burns’ on fire safety? Lessons from deadly Ngau Tau Kok fire
Crackdown on safety of mini storage facilities is all very well, but last year’s tragedy exposed fire prevention failings that affect many privately owned buildings, say safety experts
For every month, two people were killed by fire in Hong Kong last year, and statistics show the numbers of deaths and injuries have not been falling. Two of the lives lost were firefighters tackling the June blaze in a Ngau Tau Kok industrial building, which started in a mini storage unit.
Given the statistics, some observers fear the recent announcement of stricter control of mini storage outlets amounts to little more than “fiddling while Rome burns”.
Hong Kong-based Townsend has 30 years of experience as a firefighter and fire investigator, and he is not the only one with grave professional concerns.
“It’s good to see the work being done on mini storage units, but what about supermarkets or sub-divided apartments?” asks John Herbert, who operates a building services engineering consultancy and has more than 20 years of experience in fire prevention and safety systems in the city.
“The Ngau Tau Kok disaster just demonstrated that FSD [Fire Services Department] had never been inside these buildings to see what was going on,” he says, exposing a potential flaw in fire safety management in the city.
