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hong kong
Criminal Probe Underway as Hong Kong Tower Fire Leaves Dozens Dead and Hundreds Missing
Firefighters found that the materials on the buildings burned at a "highly unusual" speed that has raised suspicions of foul play.
Nov 26, 2025
A massive fire broke out at several high-rise apartment buildings in Hong Kong's Tai Po district on Wednesday, leaving dozens of people dead and hundreds more missing.
According to BBC, local officials say that at least 36 people died as a result of the blaze, while 279 people are still unaccounted for.
More than 750 firefighters were called to put out the blaze, which Hong Kong-based publication the Standard called "the city’s worst fire in nearly two decades."
The fire's cause is still unknown, although the Guardian reported local officials said that it "had started in some of the external bamboo and mesh scaffolding that encased the towers before spreading inside them."
BBC noted that Hong Kong is one of the few major cities in the world to still use bamboo, which is highly combustable, when constructing modern buildings.
"Local media reports in March said the government's development bureau had been trying to phase out the use of bamboo because of safety concerns," BBC wrote. "The push towards using metal instead of bamboo came after a spate of scaffolding-related deaths in Hong Kong."
The Standard also reported Hong Kong Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung said that the government would open a criminal investigation after firefighters found that the materials on the buildings burned at a "highly unusual" speed that has raised suspicions of foul play.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said he was "extremely saddened" by the tragedy and he vowed a full investigation into the fire's causes. For the time being, however, he said, "the top priority is to extinguish the fire, rescue trapped residents, treat the injured, and provide support for follow-up arrangements."
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'Terrifying': Hong Kong's Heaviest Rainfall on Record Brings Deadly Flooding
Between 11 pm Thursday and midnight Friday local time, the Hong Kong Observatory recorded more than 6.2 inches of rain, the most rain in an hour since 1884.
Sep 08, 2023
The heaviest rainfall in 140 years brought deadly flooding to Hong Kong Friday.
The deluge killed two, injured more than 140, flooded streets and tunnels, and shuttered schools and the stock market.
"I've never seen scenes like this before. Even during previous typhoons, it was never this severe," Connie Cheung, a 65-year-old assistant nurse, told Reuters. "It's quite terrifying."
Between 11 pm Thursday and midnight Friday local time, the Hong Kong Observatory recorded more than 6.2 inches of rain, according to CNN. That's the most rain in an hour since 1884, when record-keeping started. The deluge prompted the weather agency to announce a "black" rainstorm warning—the highest possible.
"Hong Kong is experiencing a once-in-a-century torrential rainstorm, and 'extreme conditions' have made the situation serious in many districts," chief executive John Lee wrote on Facebook during the storm.
The rain came from once-typhoon Haikui, which made landfall in Fujian, China, Tuesday, Reuters reported. While it has since weakened to a tropical depression, it continues to dump rain while moving slowly. The climate crisis, caused mostly by the burning of fossil fuels, is making tropical storms more extreme, as Al Jazeera noted. At the same time, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture—at a rate of 7% per 1.8°F of warming. The Hong Kong deluge comes days after Greece experienced its wettest 24-hours on record, as one official said.
"This is fast becoming the new normal," the activist group Climate Defiance wrote on the site formerly known as Twitter. "How is this normal? How can this go on?"
The storm killed at least two people, whom police found floating in flood waters, as The Associated Press reported. The fire department helped 110 people evacuate.
Rain flooded streets and subway stations, stranding commuters including professor Stuart Hargreaves, who told CNN he had to sleep in his car after the roads became "impassible."
"Water was coming over the hood of the car and I thought it was going to flood the engine," he said.
Hargreaves found a safe place to park for the night, and said when he drove home the streets were full of debris from flooding and landslides. Schools were closed Friday "due to extreme conditions," and authorities also urged workers not to go into the office, as Al Jazeera reported.
"I have instructed all government departments to race against time, concentrate firepower on the aftermath work, and repair the affected roads and community facilities as soon as possible."
The remnants of Haikui also brought extreme rainfall to southern China, where Shenzhen recorded a record 18.4 inches of rain, and more than 11,000 were evacuated from Meizhou in Guangdong province, as AP reported. In Shenzhen, schools were also closed, as well as some offices and subway stations, according to Reuters. Schools were closed or delayed in 10 Guangdong districts. Beijing also warned several of its neighborhoods to prepare for heavy flooding through Saturday, AP said.
In Hong Kong, the government began recovery efforts.
"I have instructed all government departments to race against time, concentrate firepower on the aftermath work, and repair the affected roads and community facilities as soon as possible," Lee wrote on Facebook.
However, some residents of Hong Kong expressed concerns online that the territory had not been prepared for the inundation, and Greenpeace East Asia raised questions about the city's ability to adapt to the climate crisis, noting that the storm overflowed the city's drainage system and that the city did not take advantage of its emergency alert systems.
"Greenpeace Hong Kong urges the government to study the impacts of climate change, identify high-risk areas, create long-term response strategies, improve emergency response capabilities, and propel the development of renewable energy and energy conservation measures," the group wrote on social media.
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Japan Releases First Fukushima Wastewater Amid Protests
In response, China said it would ban the import of all Japanese ocean products, with one ministry spokesperson calling Japan's decision "selfish."
Aug 24, 2023
At around 1:00 pm local time Thursday, the Tokyo Electric Power Company began to discharge wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant, in keeping with the schedule Japan announced Tuesday.
In response, South Korean protestors attempted to enter the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, and China said it would ban the import of all Japanese ocean products.
"The ocean is the common property of all humankind, not a place for Japan to arbitrarily dump nuclear-contaminated water," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said ahead of the first release of water Thursday, as The Guardian reported.
Wang also called the decision "extremely selfish."
"The sea is not Japan's trash bin."
The Chinese customs agency said it would immediately and "completely suspend the import of aquatic products originating in Japan" to "prevent the risk of radioactive contamination of food safety." This means that, in addition to seafood, marine products like seaweed or sea salt would also be covered, CNN explained.
In South Korea, around 50 people gathered for a protest outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Reuters reported. A group of them entered the building and reached the eighth floor, where they unfurled banners.
"The sea is not Japan's trash bin," one banner read. "Stop releasing contaminated water at once."
Police arrested 16 people for trespassing, physically carrying and dragging some out of the building and on to a bus, a Reuters photographer said.
While South Korea's opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung calls the Fukushima release an "act of terror," the country's government under President Yoon Suk Yeol has backed Japan's decision, Deutsche Welle explained. However, the release is unpopular with the public, with more than 80% opposing the release and more than 60% vowing not to eat Japanese seafood afterward, The Associated Press reported. This has prompted the government to threaten Japan with a lawsuit if radiation levels surpass the safety limit, according to DW.
"I totally oppose the Japanese plan. The radioactive wastewater is truly a bad thing," Seoul resident Lee Jae-kyung told AP. "My feelings toward Japan have worsened because of the wastewater release."
The governments of Hong Kong and Macao have also placed a more limited ban on seafood from 10 Japanese prefectures including Fukushima. Hong Kong chief executive John Lee called Japan's decision to release the water "irresponsible," according to The Guardian. There, the release also drew protests, with demonstrators ripping up a sign with the Japanese flag and the words, "No trace of humanity. An enemy of the whole world," when they reached the consulate, as AP reported.
Domestically, too, the release has prompted opposition from fishers and environmental groups, as well as concern from citizens.
"I'm not going to buy fish from Fukushima again and I will ask the sushi restaurant where I usually go where they are buying their stocks from. And I definitely will not go to any of the beaches there with my children until I am absolutely sure that it is safe again," Kanako Hosomura, who lives less than 200 kilometers from the plant, told DW.
Around 400 protesters gathered outside the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) headquarters Thursday morning, Greenpeace Japan tweeted.
The protests continued even after the release began.
Japan insists that its plan for the release is safe, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded it is "consistent with relevant international safety standards." TEPCO is first treating the water in an advanced liquid processing system to remove everything except for the radioactive tritium, which is not possible to remove because it is an isotope of hydrogen, a key component of water, as NPR explained. The water containing the tritium is then further diluted with seawater to one-seventh of the World Health Organization's safety standard, according to DW. The government says some nuclear plants release tritium-contaminated wastewater at higher levels, NPR reported. And The Guardian observed that Chinese plants also release wastewater into the ocean.
TEPCO said it would release 7,800 tons of water over the next 17 days, and around 31,200 tons by April, according to DW. The entire process is expected to take around three decades.
Edwin Lyman, the director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C., told NPR that Japan's plan was "the least bad of a bunch of bad options."
"The idea of deliberately discharging hazardous substances into the environment, into the ocean is repugnant," Lyman said. "But unfortunately, if you do look at it from the technical perspective, it's hard to argue that the impacts of this discharge would be worse than those that are occurring at nuclear power plants that are operating worldwide."
However, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute senior scientist Ken Buesseler said it would be better to keep the waste stored on land where it could be watched.
While he didn't think the waste posed a threat to the wider Pacific, "nearshore in Japan could be affected in the long term because of accumulation of non-tritium forms of radioactivity," Buesseler told NPR.
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