Short take: The Grenfell and Wang Fuk Court fires
Too many parallels
As China welcomes the year of the fire horse, the season of celebration is bitter for former residents of Wang Fuk Court in Hong Kong.
Two months ago, fire swept through seven of the eight towers in the apartment complex. A hundred and sixty-eight people died, and over 70 were injured. The survivors are haunted by trauma and loss - of relatives, friends, and homes - while trying to navigate a new reality.
Parallels between the Wang Fuk Court fire and the 2017 Grenfell fire in London are striking. And while the fires represent extremes of negligence and harm, their causes reflect flaws that pervade the ways that buildings are constructed and maintained.
The parallels include:
Resident warnings going unheard
One of the Grenfell survivors said “to predict something is going to happen, and have it happen and not be able to stop it. There’s no words for that.”
Residents of Grenfell and of Wang Fuk Court warned of fire risks, and their warnings went unheeded. Just like how garment workers in the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh had warned of dangerous cracks in the building’s walls. The factory bosses ignored the warnings and on 24 April 2013 the building collapsed, killing 1,134 people.
Hazardous materials
In Grenfell and Wang Fuk Court the materials used for renovation processes were highly flammable, enabling the fire to spread quickly throughout the buildings. At Grenfell, the primary cause of the fire spreading to the extent it did was aluminum composite cladding installed in 2016. At Wang Fuk Court polystyrene boards covering the windows while renovation was underway, flammable safety netting and bamboo scaffolding fueled the blaze.
Which leads to….
Cultures of corruption
The Grenfell Tower inquiry concluded that there was “systematic dishonesty” by the manufacturers of the cladding and insulation, who “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing process, misrepresent test data and mislead the market.”
In Hong Kong, 13 consultants, contractors and subcontractors involved in the renovation at Wang Fuk Court have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and corruption.
Dorz Cheung survived the Wang Fuk Court fire with his 87-year-old grandmother. They are now living in a temporary space less than a third the size of their former apartment. He says:
“The anger stems from the fact that it’s not just negligence, but a man-made disaster.”
Imagine what a transformation in building processes could look like. Starting simply with recognizing the dignity of residents, with ensuring integrity in materials and with prioritizing care over greed. Interests are entrenched, and systems take time to change but any shift in hearts, minds and action is a step in the right direction.
*****
This CNN story profiles people whose lives have been upturned by the Wang Fuk Court fire, including Yip Ka-kui whose wife died after rescuing four neighbors, and Purwanti, the sister of Yasmiati from Indonesia, one of 10 domestic workers who died in the fire.
The UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission produced a series on the human rights dimensions of the Grenfell disaster, from the right to life, to children’s rights, to access to justice.