Government announces updates on follow-up work on Tai Po fire
The three task forces set up by the Government for the fire at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po - the Task Force on Investigation and Regulation, the Task Force on Emergency Support and Fund-Raising, and the Task Force on Emergency Accommodation Arrangements - are making full efforts to follow up on the support, relief, and investigation work related to the incident. Details are as follows:
Financial and welfare support
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For the Support Fund for Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po, established by the Government, donations received are about $3 billion as of noon today (December 9). In addition to the start-up capital of $300 million from the Government, the fund's total has now reached around $3.3 billion. The fund will be used to assist residents in rebuilding their homes and providing long-term and sustained support.
The Government earlier announced that the Support Fund will provide a living allowance to each affected household. As of today, 1 617 cases have been processed. The living allowance is increased from $50,000 to $100,000. In addition, the Support Fund will provide families of each deceased victim with a token of solidarity of $200,000, as well as $50,000 to cover funeral costs. As of today, a total of 106 cases have been processed. The allowance will be disbursed in phases.
Social workers from the Social Welfare Department (SWD) have been in contact with more than 1 970 affected households, and more than 4 900 residents have been registered for the "one social worker per household" follow-up service. SWD staff also paid visits to the affected residents staying in transitional housing units in Kai Tak today and distributed Octopus cards with a face value of $2,000 to facilitate their daily travels and address their imminent needs. The SWD will maintain liaison with the affected households to provide all necessary assistance while fully supporting the relief work of the Government. Those not yet in touch with the SWD are advised to leave their contact information by calling 182 183 as soon as possible.
Accommodation support
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As of this morning, a total of 1 431 residents have been accommodated, through the co-ordination of the Home and Youth Affairs Bureau, in youth hostels, camps, or hotel rooms. Another 2 530 residents are currently living in transitional housing units provided by the Housing Bureau or units from the Hong Kong Housing Society. Moreover, the Tai Po District Office continues to operate a temporary shelter at Tai Po Community Centre, which remains open to residents in need. The other temporary shelter at Tung Cheong Street Community Hall will remain in operation until the existing users have relocated to arranged emergency accommodations.
Relief supplies and donations
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The supplies donation online platform, established by the Government and the information technology sector, continues to operate, facilitating the registration of supplies donations from organisations and the public. The Government has so far received over 1 700 registrations, of which approximately 30 per cent were submitted by organisations, whereas the others were contributed by the public. The various registered donation items include food and beverages, clothing, daily necessities, bedding, and electrical appliances. The Government is actively assessing residents' actual needs through the relevant policy bureau, government departments, and service organisations for the matching of donated supplies in order to distribute appropriate items in phases to places in need. So far, over 16 000 pieces of donation items covering various categories have been distributed to different places. The matching and distribution of supplies will continue.
Handling of reported missing persons
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Officers from the Disaster Victim Identification Unit completed the search of the area around the buildings and near the collapsed scaffolding, which had been confirmed as safe. Suspected bones were discovered and collected for further testing. In the next phase, search will be conducted after the removal of scaffold nets and scaffolding. In addition, further testing has confirmed that one set of human remains found earlier belongs to two deceased individuals. Therefore, the number of the deceased has increased to 160, with 120 human remains identified. The Police have contacted the families of the missing persons and those who have preliminarily identified the deceased through photographs, and continued to arrange DNA oral swab sampling for them in batches today for scientific identification of the deceased.
Investigations
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The Fire Services Department has set up a rope system on the podium of Wang Tai House to access the underground pump room, allowing the DVIU to conduct searches in hard-to-access areas at the fire scene. Additionally, the Inter-departmental Fire Investigation Task Force held another cross-departmental meeting today to continue investigating the causes of the fire.
Regulation and inspection work
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The Independent Checking Unit (ICU) of the Housing Bureau continued to extract concrete core samples from the affected buildings of Wang Fuk Court today. Currently, all seven buildings have been covered.
Under the ICU's supervision, the miscellaneous items earlier found on some of the scaffolding in the four Home Ownership Scheme courts, namely Yee Kok Court in Sham Shui Po, On Kay Court in Kwun Tong, Sui Wo Court in Sha Tin and Ching Lai Court in Sham Shui Po, as well as Fung Wah Estate in Chai Wan under the Tenants Purchase Scheme, have essentially been removed by the contractor. The ICU will continue to inspect regularly and monitor the situation to ensure the safety of residents.
Regarding the order to remove scaffold nets issued by the Buildings Department (BD), as of today, all 230 private buildings have had their scaffold nets removed from the external walls.
The BD is striving to announce a new set of arrangements within this week that will require scaffold nets used at construction sites to be sampled on-site and certified as compliant with the relevant standards prior to installation, so that the relevant external wall work can resume as soon as possible.
The Labour Department (LD) continues to inspect fire protection facilities and the fire emergency preparedness of building maintenance work sites with large-scale scaffolding to ensure the occupational safety of workers. As of 4pm today, the LD has inspected 371 construction sites, issued a total of 189 written warnings and 101 improvement notices, and taken out 25 prosecutions.
Photo by Bastille Post
