Wednesday, December 15, 2021
More than 300 people are trapped on the rooftop of a Hong Kong skyscraper where a major fire broke out during Wednesday’s lunchtime rush.
At least four people have been injured in the blaze at the 38-storey World Trade Centre on Gloucester Road, Causeway Bay, which emergency services were alerted to at 12.37pm.
The police said a woman in her 60s was lying semi-conscious in hospital and suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation. Three others also reported feeling unwell.
The shoppers and restaurant-goers are said to be among those still in the building, which operates as a mall and office tower complex.
At 1.45pm, firefighters were using a fire engine’s extendable ladder to rescue those who were trapped on a open-air area section of the building on the fifth floor.
Shortly after 1pm, the fire was upgraded to a level three incident. The severity of blazes in the city are graded on a scale of one to five, with the latter the most serious.
Police said that preliminary investigation suggested the blaze broke out in scaffolding covering part of the building, with smoke spreading into the shopping centre itself and rear staircases.
A police spokesman said they had received multiple calls about the fire, reporting the rear staircases of the building were filled with dense smoke.
He said initial information showed that about 100 or so had been evacuated to a fifth floor open-air area section of the building. However, dozens were still trapped in restaurants in the shopping centre.
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