Hong Kong authorities reported this Saturday (29) that 144 people initially reported missing after the fire at the Wang Fuk Court residential complex were located unharmed, while around 150 remain without contact.
The official death toll is 128 and identification work remains ongoing. The provisional count points to 84 dead and 37 injured among the people who were initially reported missing.
The head of the police victim investigation unit, Karen Tsang Shuk-yin, indicated that 44 bodies remain unidentified and that the police have started to notify family members and people who reported the disappearance so that they can participate in the process.
Although authorities have not provided a breakdown, figures released since Wednesday show that the initial list of missing people, which was around 200 cases, has increased to almost 300, in part due to reports with incomplete or difficult-to-verify information.
“Of these 150 cases, in one hundred of them we received few details, sometimes just a nickname or even doubts about whether the person really lived in Wang Fuk Court,” explained Tsang in statements to the newspaper South China Morning Postadding that the police are contacting those who called the qualified line “one by one” to advance identification.
The update comes amid three-day official mourning in the Chinese-controlled administrative region and as rescue teams continue to search the seven affected blocks for remains and evidence.
Preliminary investigations indicate that highly flammable materials used in the renovation facilitated the vertical spread of the fire, while the criminal investigation progresses with 11 arrests, including directors, consultants and others, in one of the deadliest tragedies in Hong Kong’s recent history.