Claim that fire alarms would not have saved lives in Tai Po blaze draws rebuke

Residents of Hong Kong’s blaze-ravaged Wang Fuk Court would still have died even if the housing estate’s fire alarms had been working during last year’s inferno, a contractor has suggested, prompting the judge overseeing a public inquiry into the disaster to question whether he was attempting to evade responsibility. Legal counsel for a director of fire service contractor China Status Development and Engineering said on Wednesday that residents living in the first building to catch fire on...

By Brian Wong,Leopold Chen