Police comb fire-ravaged Hong Kong apartments; death toll at 146 people

Hong Kong authorities pressed ahead on Monday with combing the remaining apartment towers destroyed by a massive fire at a housing estate that killed at least 146 people and displaced hundreds now adjusting to life in temporary housing.

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Police have completed sweeps of four of the seven towers that were engulfed in the city’s deadliest fire in more than 75 years, finding bodies of residents in stairwells and on rooftops, trapped as they tried to flee the flames.

Thousands have turned out to pay tribute to the victims, who include at least nine domestic helpers from Indonesia and one from the Philippines, with lines of mourners stretching more than a kilometer (a half-mile) along a canal next to the doomed Wang Fuk Court estate on Sunday.

Vigils are also due to take place this week in Tokyo and London. Around 40 people are still missing, authorities said.

The cause of the blaze that started last Wednesday and quickly fanned across the exterior of the apartments under renovation is still being investigated.

But amid pockets of public anger over missed fire risk warnings and evidence of unsafe construction practices, Beijing has warned it would crack down on any “anti-China’ protests.