‘Everything is gone’: Residents left reeling by Hong Kong fire horror

“Without the alarm, I was not aware of the seriousness of the fire, and then people started yelling.

“The fire was pretty small at the beginning. The flames grew higher and higher, and it spread quickly.

Wu and his wife, Karen, were the lucky ones. Their apartment was on the fifth floor of Block E in the Wang Fuk Court complex in Hong Kong’s northern Tai Po neighbourhood – low enough for them to make a quick escape down the stairs.

By morning, seven of the eight towers in the complex were blackened, burnt-out shells, with fires still roaring inside three of them.