By Tyrone Siu, Joyce Zhou and Jessie Pang
HONG KONG (Reuters) -Hong Kong firefighters brought under control on Thursday a huge blaze in an apartment complex that killed at least 65 people and left nearly 300 missing, while police said a "grossly negligent" construction firm using unsafe materials may have caused the fire.
Rescuers battled intense heat and thick smoke for more than a day after the blaze erupted, as they fought to reach residents feared trapped on the upper floors of the Wang Fuk Court housing complex in the northern district of Tai Po.
The Hospital Authority in Hong Kong confirmed an updated toll of 65 dead and 70 injured as of late on Thursday.
Responding to Hong Kong's deadliest fire in 77 years, its leader John Lee said the government would set up a HK$300 million ($38.6 million) fund to help residents.
Chinese companies and groups announced donations to the fire victims, including automakers Xiaomi, Xpeng and Geely, as well as the charity foundation of Alibaba's founder Jack Ma and Tencent.
The eight blocks of the tightly packed complex have 2,000 apartments home to more than 4,600 people in the financial hub, which is struggling to overcome chronic shortages of affordable housing.
The apartments were under renovation and clad in bamboo scaffolding and green mesh.
A distraught woman carrying her daughter's graduation photograph searched for her child outside a shelter, one of eight that authorities said are sheltering 900 residents.
"She and her father are still not out yet," sobbed the 52-year-old, who gave only her surname, Ng. "They didn’t have water to save our building."
POLICE INVESTIGATE CAUSE OF BLAZE
On Thursday, police officers searched the building maintenance company responsible for the housing estate, seizing related documents.
The government identified the registered contractor for the complex as Prestige Construction and Engineering Company Limited. Prestige did not answer repeated calls for comment.
Police seized bidding documents, a list of employees, 14 computers and three mobile phones during Thursday's raid of the Prestige office, the government added.
"We have reason to believe that the company’s responsible parties were grossly negligent, which led to this accident and caused the fire to spread uncontrollably, resulting in major casualties," said police superintendent Eileen Chung.
Police have arrested two directors and an engineering consultant of Prestige Construction on suspicion of manslaughter over the fire, Chung added.
Police said in addition to the protective mesh and plastic coverings of the buildings, which they said may fall short of fire standards, they found foam material sealing some windows on one unaffected building, installed in year-long maintenance work.
The city's development bureau has also discussed gradually replacing bamboo scaffolding across the Asian financial hub with metal scaffolding as a safety measure
China's President Xi Jinping urged an "all-out effort" to extinguish the fire and minimise casualties and losses, state broadcaster CCTV said.
The leadership of both the Hong Kong government and China's Communist Party moved quickly to show they attached utmost importance to a tragedy that is seen as a potential test of Beijing's grip on the city.
Hong Kong's sky-high property prices have long been a trigger for discontent and the tragedy could stoke resentment towards authorities despite their efforts to tighten political and national security control, analysts said.
FLAMES LEAP FROM BUILDINGS
Video images from the scene showed flames still leaping from at least two of the 32-storey towers on Thursday.
Authorities said they had doused the flames in four of seven affected blocks, with those in the rest brought under control.
"We bought in this building more than 20 years ago," said a 51-year-old resident surnamed Wan. "All of our belongings were in this building, and now that it has all burned like this, what’s left?"
An online app showed reports of missing persons submitted through a linked Google document that detailed residents of individual towers and rooms.
It includes descriptions such as "Mother-in-law in her 70s, missing" or "one boy and one girl" or "Rooftop: 33-year-old male."
One simply reads "27th floor, room 1: He is dead." Reuters could not independently verify the information on the app.
DENSELY POPULATED CITY
The fire has prompted comparisons to London's Grenfell Tower inferno that killed 72 people in 2017. That fire was blamed on firms fitting the exterior with flammable cladding, as well as failings by the government and the construction industry.
Wang FukCourt is one of many high-rise housing complexes in Hong Kong, one of the world's most densely populated cities. Tai Po, near the border with mainland China, is an established suburban district home to about 300,000.
Occupied since 1983, the complex is under the government's subsidised home ownership scheme, according to property agency websites, a lifeline for the city's middle-income families.
($1=HK$7.7779)
(Reporting by Joyce Zhou, Tyrone Siu, Jessie Pang, Anne Marie Roantree, Clare Jim, Greg Torode, Farah Master and James Pomfret in Hong Kong; additional reporting by Karen Lema in Manila and Stanley Widianto in Jakarta; Writing by Lincoln Feast, Michael Perry, Saad Sayeed and Keith Weir; Editing by Diane Craft, Clarence Fernandez and Shron Singleton)
