A woman trapped in the burning Wang Fuk Court estate in Tai Po died after police did not pass her 999 emergency call to the fire department, a public inquiry has heard.

Inter-departmental communications during the blaze that killed 168 people in November came under scrutiny when the public hearings into the tragedy resumed on Wednesday.

Sunny Wong, deputy chief fire officer of operational support and professional development at the Fire Services Department (FSD), testified before an independent committee on the 12th day of the hearings.

Victor Dawes, lead counsel for the committee, drew attention to the hundreds of emergency calls during the fire, most of them first picked up by the police’s 999 call centre and forwarded to the FSD. However, some calls were not passed on.

In a 999 call made at 3.06pm on November 26, a woman, who lived on the 17th floor of Wang Cheong House, the first building that caught fire, said she was taking refuge in a toilet as fumes crept into her flat.

The 999 operator told her that firefighters were at the scene and asked at least five times whether she needed “firefighters to bring you out,” according to an audio recording of the call, which was played during Wednesday’s hearing.

The woman did not make such a request but said she would close all the windows. The call ended with the operator urging her to “call back if needed.”

Dawes said the woman eventually died and raised concerns about why the police’s 999 call centre did not immediately pass on the call to the FSD.

Wong, who is responsible for managing FSD’s call centre, said the police should have forwarded the call.

“I have not heard of a situation like this in my experience. For this specific case, I think it should not have been like this,” he said in Cantonese.

In another 999 call at 9.22 pm, a man told the police that a grandfather of his student was reportedly trapped in flat 2802 in Wang Shing House. The elderly man had asthma, the man said, while the 999 operator responded by saying they would forward the case to the FSD.

However, FSD’s case records from that day showed that the department was only alerted to the case roughly an hour later based on information collected “at the scene.”

Dawes said the elderly man was rescued at about 4.30 am the next day but eventually died due to severe injuries.

Wong agreed that the communications between the police and the FSD could be improved, but he also said that the police had generally assisted the FSD’s work “significantly.”

Backlog of calls

Wong also said the fire at Wang Fuk Court was “extraordinary” and “unprecedented,” leading to a serious backlog of emergency calls and longer-than-average response times.

After the fire broke out, it took on average 58 seconds for a 999 call to be picked up by an FSD officer, he said.

Dawes told the inquiry that in extreme cases, some callers had to wait for 15 minutes for their 999 calls to be picked up by the FSD. He also said the FSD call centre was able to handle 30 simultaneous calls.

Wong said the blaze had tested the capacity of the FSD call centre, with the department having to allocate about 80 staff to establish a support centre for call-backs. However, the department believed that it was able to handle the volume of calls during the fire, Wong said.

He also pushed back against Dawes’s suggestion that FSD call operators should provide real-time fire updates to callers, such as an evacuation order issued at around 4.10 pm that day.

Emergency call operators should focus on collecting information and passing it to frontline commanders, who could assign firefighters on rescue missions, Wong said, calling it “inappropriate” for operators to evacuate callers.

Biggest lesson from the blaze

The senior FSD officer also addressed several criticisms of the FSD operation, including that the department should have employed drones and sought help from mainland Chinese fire services.

He said drone technology remained “immature” for firefighting and the city was “not ready” to seek help from mainland Chinese fire services due to significant differences in equipment and operational protocols.

Wong said that the biggest lesson from the blaze should be about how to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

“Rescue teams have very little to do against such a disaster. I think any talks about improvement must start from prevention,” he said.

Committee chair Judge David Lok noted public calls to elevate the inquiry into a statutory body with the power to summon witnesses.

He said the strategy has “pros and cons” and would be addressed in the future, but he did not elaborate further.

A resident of the fire-ravaged Wang Fuk Court housing estate in Tai Po has reported a suspected theft to authorities after photos taken inside her flat showed apparent signs of ransacking.

The resident, surnamed Lee, told HKFP on Tuesday that her younger sister received three photos of their upper-floor flat in Wang Cheong House from the government social worker assigned to assist the family on Monday.

Lee said her sister’s room appeared to have been searched, and boxes used to store cash and jewellery had also been opened, leading to suspicion that their flat had been looted.

The photos, seen by HKFP, appeared to show several open drawers and boxes.

After she and her family made a police report on Monday, officers went to their flat to investigate the next morning and found “most of the cash” left at their home, she told HKFP.

However, she said she did not rule out that other valuables might be missing.

“Because it is quite chaotic inside the flat right now, we will have to personally assess the loss on the day we return home,” Lee said.

Wang Cheong House was the first building at Wang Fuk Court that caught fire on November 26. The blaze engulfed seven of the eight blocks at the government-subsidised housing complex, killing 168 people and displacing thousands.

Authorities have cordoned off all eight blocks since the tragedy due to extensive damage and potential safety hazards.

Starting next week, residents of the seven fire-hit buildings will be allowed to return to their homes to collect personal belongings under strict government arrangements, including a three-hour limit per visit.

Lee said that her family has been scheduled to return on April 28.

Police told HKFP on Tuesday that officers of the Tai Po district found cash and jewellery inside the flat earlier that day and the family had performed a count of the properties.

Three construction workers were arrested last month on suspicion of stealing jewellery worth HK$90,000 from a unit in Wang Tai House, the block that saw the largest number of casualties, while carrying out reinforcement works.

The arrests prompted authorities to step up security, including body searches of workers and more frequent inspections of the blocks.