The death toll in a housing complex in Hong Kong, China, rose to 146 today as more bodies were found in the burned-out buildings.
Citizens come and wait in line to pay their respects, lay flowers and say short prayers or leave written messages at the site of the disaster, among the worst in China's history.
There were many elderly people in the complex, and seven Indonesians were among the dead.
A domestic worker from the Philippines was also killed and 12 others are missing, and today hundreds of Filipinos sang religious songs and prayed for those killed in the fire on a pedestrian street in central Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Police Disaster Victim Identification Unit is thoroughly searching the high-rise building complex and finding bodies in apartments and on rooftops.
Another 100 people are missing and 79 are injured, disaster relief chief Cheng Ka-chun told reporters.
The buildings are structurally sound despite the fire, he added.
So far, his team has searched four of the seven burned buildings out of eight in the 31-story apartment complex in Tai Po, a suburb near Hong Kong's border with mainland China, built in the 1980s. The complex has nearly 2.000 apartments with more than 4.600 residents.
Eight buildings in a complex in the suburb of Tai Po caught fire during renovations, and were wrapped in bamboo scaffolding and nylon netting, with windows covered with Styrofoam panels. Authorities are investigating whether fire safety regulations were violated.
In addition, rescuers found that faulty fire alarm devices had been installed, said Andi Yeung, director of the Hong Kong Fire Department.
The government said the fire revealed major safety failures in the management of the reconstruction project.
The Ministry of Emergency Management in Beijing announced inspections of tall buildings across China to identify and eliminate fire hazards.
Hong Kong officials announced on Saturday that they had ordered the suspension of 28 construction projects being carried out by the same company, Prestige Construction and Engineering Company, for safety checks.
Three people, including the director of the company that carried out the reconstruction and a consultant from an engineering firm, were arrested and suspected of manslaughter.
Anti-corruption authorities arrested eight more suspects, including scaffolding contractors, directors of an engineering consulting firm, and directors of a renovation project.
A preliminary investigation showed the fire started on Wednesday afternoon on scaffolding on the lower floors of one of the buildings and quickly spread inside as the fire engulfed Styrofoam panels and blew out windows, said Hong Kong's security secretary, Chris Tang.
The fire spread to neighboring buildings and soon seven out of eight in the social housing complex were burning.
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