Hong Kong housing secretary resigns over deadly Tai Po fire
The blaze that ripped through seven 31-storey tower blocks at the Wang Fuk Court residential complex, which was undergoing renovation work in the northern Tai Po district, was the deadliest in the city since 1948.
Smoke rises after a fire broke out at Wang Fuk Court, a residential estate in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong's New Territories, on Nov 26, 2025. (Photo: AP/Chan Long Hei)
HONG KONG: Hong Kong's housing secretary Winnie Ho has resigned over a fire in Tai Po that killed 168 people in November last year.
Hong Kong leader John Lee announced this on Thursday (Oct 29), as he bowed and apologised for the deadly blaze and promised extensive reforms to its building industry and regulatory system.
The Nov 26 fire ripped through seven 31-storey tower blocks at the Wang Fuk Court residential complex, which was undergoing renovation work in the northern Tai Po district. It was the deadliest fire in the city since 1948. Thousands of residents were displaced after their homes became uninhabitable.
Lee was speaking shortly before he released a more than 1,000-page report by the judge-led panel that detailed wide-ranging governance and supervisory failings in Hong Kong's building-renovation system.
"I am deeply saddened. I would like to apologise to the affected residents and the general public," Lee said.
Ho is the first official to resign over the inferno. The Hong Kong government has set up an independent team to investigate which officials should be held accountable and to outline disciplinary actions.
Lee said the decision for Ho to assume responsibility for the incident was made after considering factors such as their official roles, policy portfolios and other relevant matters.
“Although the incident within the remit of the Housing Bureau’s Independent Checking Unit (ICU) did not involve personal fault or misconduct, I believe the Secretary for Housing should bear political accountability,” he said.
Lee also said that besides the ICU, three other government bodies bore partial responsibility - the Buildings Department, the Fire Services Department and the Labour Department.
Meanwhile, the ICU - deemed most at fault for the deadly blaze - will be axed.
Deputy Financial Secretary Michael Wong, who is also acting secretary for housing, said at the press conference that a public housing control unit will be set up to replace the ICU.
He added that the new unit will cover all public rental housing and subsidised sale housing, and operate based on each project to improve communication between stakeholders.
Separately, Secretary for Security Chris Tang announced the establishment of a new large-scale fire prevention region under the Fire Services Department to focus on drawing up contingency plans for high-risk scenarios.
According to the South China Morning Post, Tang said that authorities will also explore developing an app to alert residents on their mobile phones when a fire breaks out, among other measures.
Meanwhile, the panel's report concluded that the fire had resulted from systemic failures across five key areas, driven by a widespread “lack of a sense of crisis” and a failure to pre-empt obvious risks.
“They failed to foresee the risks which were very much foreseeable,” the panel said, as reported by South China Morning Post.
This include regulatory loopholes that left major gaps, including no ban on construction site smoking and an absence of standards or enforcement for temporary combustible materials such as styrofoam boards and scaffolding nets.
The report included suggested reforms, including laws to criminalise bid-rigging across the construction industry with fines of up to HK$10 million and 10 years' imprisonment. Hong Kong's Chief Secretary Eric Chan will head a steering committee to oversee the reforms advocated in the report, said Lee.
The committee report said contractor Prestige Construction & Engineering Co Ltd and project consultant Will Power Architects Co Ltd should bear primary responsibility.
At least 25 criminal charges related to the Wang Fuk Court fire have been made against Prestige, Will Power and seven individuals, including manslaughter, conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and tax evasion.
The report also outlined widespread unlawful and dubious construction practices as a "corrupt eco-system".
The rigging of bids involved many different parties, some linked to triad organised crime gangs, it said.
"The fire has been put out, but the reform has only just begun," the report stated.
"The Committee finds that no Government department took effective ownership of various fire safety issues and complaints about fire hazards fell into a vacuum," the report stated.
The committee held 30 hearings this year with 80 witnesses, including residents, property management and renovation personnel, engineering and fire experts, government officials and regulators. It evaluated more than 1 million files and submissions as it investigated the cause of the fire and reviewed oversight of building renovations.
The apartment complex was home to more than 4,600 residents, 1,700 of them over the age of 65. Of those who died, 114 people - or about 70 per cent - were aged 65 or older.
