System, which triggers high-pitched alarm on mobile phones, would have offered little help as it takes up to one hour to activate, officer says
3-MIN READ3-MIN ListenBrian WongandJess MaPublished: 4:49pm, 23 Apr 2026Updated: 5:04pm, 23 Apr 2026Hong Kong’s fire services declined to activate an emergency alert during the city’s deadliest inferno in decades, citing concerns that it might have caused confusion among trapped residents, a public inquiry has heard.An independent committee investigating last year’s disaster at Wang Fuk Court was also told on Thursday that the system, which would have triggered a loud, high-pitched alarm on mobile phones, would have offered little help to the Fire Services Department’s evacuation efforts, as it would take up to an hour to activate.
The committee was examining failures linked to the deactivation of fire alarms across the eight towers at the Tai Po residential complex when the blaze broke out on November 26 last year.
The inferno that lasted for around 43 hours and ravaged all but one block was the deadliest in Hong Kong since 1948, killing 168 people and displacing nearly 5,000.
The inquiry earlier heard that a property management employee at Wang Fuk Court had switched off the estate’s fire hosepipes to facilitate water tank repairs during a HK$336 million (US$43 million) renovation project and inadvertently disabled the fire alarms altogether.
Victor Dawes, the committee’s leading counsel, highlighted that five of seven affected towers caught fire at a relatively late stage, suggesting there might have been enough time to evacuate trapped residents.
