A fire which started at a mini-storage in Kowloon Bay on Tuesday has yet to be put out, as smoke bellows out of the fifth floor and cracks are seen on the outer walls.
The fire at Amoycan Industrial Centre began on the third floor and, on Thursday afternoon, firefighters were still tackling the blaze. The flames have been ongoing for around 50 hours and have claimed the life of a 30-year-old firefighter.
At a press conference held on Thursday afternoon, Kong Ping-lam, the Deputy Chief Fire Officer of Kowloon, said: “On the fifth floor on the left… there is smoke coming out, and so we have sent a Breathing Apparatus Team and brought a hose in to do evaluations, to see whether the fire is moving on to the fifth floor.”
“At the back of the building, there are some cracks. Colleagues have done evaluations for us and [said] that there is no danger of [the building] collapsing at the moment,” he added.
“We are going to try our best to put out the fire as quickly as possible,” said Kong.
Firefighters have already doused the sixth floor with water earlier on Thursday as a precautionary measure. According to Oriental Daily, around 400 residents from the nearby Jade Field Garden are also to be evacuated.
Residents at a nearby elderly home were evacuated on Wednesday night.
Danger in the air
The area around the fire has recorded PM2.5 levels more than 80 times the standards of the World Health Organisation, according to the Clean Air Network. The Chief Executive Officer of the Clean Air Network Patrick Fung, brought a measurement device to the fire and found that PM2.5 levels reached up to 2,000 micrograms per cubic metre. However, Fung also said that the wind will change the results, as the measurements later lowered to 60 micrograms per cubic metre. Fung said that the health of residents near to the fire may be affected.
