23rd December 2025 – (Hong Kong) At least 161 people have died in a five-alarm fire at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po, according to a Yahoo News report. The day after the blaze, Prestige Construction & Engineering Co. Limited director Hau Wah-kin and two others became the first arrests on suspicion of manslaughter. Prestige is also the main contractor for the major renovation at Elegance Gardens in Tuen Mun, where the management committee convened last night. Appearing publicly for the first time since his arrest, Hau said he and his company were under “enormous pressure” after the disaster, adding the inferno was “terrifying” and that he had been unable to sleep.
Following the fire, Far East Architects Limited, the consultant for the Elegance Gardens refurbishment, immediately instructed Prestige to suspend works. At last night’s committee meeting, members also addressed the disappearance of the original performance bond agreement signed with Prestige, involving a guarantee sum of HK$7 million. Far East Architects revealed it learned about a week ago that scaffolding at Elegance Gardens was currently unsafe and required remedial action.
Hau told the meeting the Tai Po incident was a “disaster” and that, as contractor, his firm had been “unfortunate”. He apologised for the disruption to construction works. On documentation issues at Elegance Gardens, he said many company papers had been seized by law enforcement in relation to the Wang Fuk Court case, limiting what he could provide. On the scaffolding concerns, he said he could help arrange qualified personnel to assess and rectify any substandard areas.
After a brief pause, Hau added that staff morale had “improved a lot” nearly a month on from the fire, though he acknowledged feeling anxious and under heavy pressure. He described the episode as tragic and said colleagues were “deeply saddened”, noting the project had been underway for over a year and was nearing completion when the fire occurred. He called for a swift police investigation, saying the cause of the blaze remained unknown. “It was catastrophic and horrifying; I haven’t been able to sleep,” he said.
Live footage showed reporters questioning Hau after the meeting about alleged non-compliant safety netting and whether inferior materials had been used. Hau declined to comment further. Outside the estate, a middle-aged man wearing a baseball cap, who identified himself as the site foreman for the Elegance Gardens works, interjected to claim the incorporated owners owed Prestige HK$4.5 million in outstanding fees and that he, as foreman, had been unable to recover wages.
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