Wang Fuk Court fire report released

October 29, 2026

Chief Executive John Lee:

The fire resulted in the deaths of 168 people, including a fireman who lost his life while bravely fighting the fire. It has caused pain and sorrow to the affected families and the community. 

Considering that the fire took place in Wang Fuk Court and it falls within the purview of the Independent Checking Unit, which is under the Housing Bureau, the Secretary for Housing should take political accountability.

I also set two requirements for (my) political team. First, continue in their respective positions to exert the utmost efforts amidst the reforms and the substantial amount of work ahead.

Second, learn from the incident, strengthen leadership and pursue more vigorously result-oriented governance.

There are five things that we must do in this matter.

First of all, we must pursue criminal liability to ensure those responsible could not escape justice, and justice could be done. 

Second, the political team has made a clear position. We will show political accountability and make a decision, explaining in detail how I considered a range of factors to come to this decision. 

Third is to ensure that we will also pursue administrative accountability, hence the setting up of the independent investigation team under the Public Service Commission in accordance with the Heads of Department Accountability System, which I set up.

The fourth thing is to ensure that we will take good care of the affected families, to ensure that they will also be provided with long-term accommodation arrangements.

Fifth, the most important, is to ensure that we reform the whole system to ensure that we will not allow a similar tragedy to take place. 

It is a decision that I make after considering all these factors.

We see, in this case, a series of things happened, resulting in this tragedy, and the things that we are rolling out now address each and every one of them. 

In addition to the 120 recommendations, we (will) do more – such as revamping the complaints system, ensuring that complaints are not just handled at departmental level but will be upgraded to the central system, with senior officials in the centre using assistive artificial intelligence to identify repeated problems, to identify probably complaints we do not think are handled to the best degree as we would like.

Also, we will be improving training among civil servants to ensure that they will be doing the service with a full mindset of serving the public and also implementing fully my governance philosophy of result-oriented governance.

This is a very comprehensive reform, with different areas of new measures.

The Government today released a report submitted by the independent committee set up in relation to the fire at Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po.

The report is available online for public viewing.

Chief Executive received the Committee’s report last Thursday. After seeking legal advice, the Government has redacted parts of the report to prevent any actual or perceived undue prejudice to ongoing criminal prosecutions.

The Government noted that it will release the full report after all relevant criminal proceedings have concluded.