The devastating blaze that began on Wednesday ripped through a housing estate, killing at least 44 people as of Thursday morning, and left some 900 people seeking refuge at temporary shelters.
Speaking on RTHK’s Backchat programme, Terry Wong, manager of local disaster relief at Hong Kong Red Cross, said mattresses, blankets and pillows were provided at five temporary shelters.
“We deployed our assessment team and coordination team at the very beginning to different shelters to coordinate with government actors like the Home Affairs Department, Social Welfare Department and a lot of different NGOs or community actors on site to provide support,” he said.
“In Tung Cheong Community Centre, its capacity was originally 200 people but a lot of people moved in so later we supported the government to scale up the capacity to around 400 and it was 100 percent occupied around midnight.
“We saw similar situations in other shelters run by the government, so we also appreciate [help that we received from] a lot of organizations.”
Wong, who was in the first-aid team deployed to the scene on Wednesday, said many residents needed the emotional support and elderly needed medicine provided by the agency’s teams.
Wong said support would still be forthcoming throughout Thursday.
“Our team at the temporary shelters will keep assessing the situation. In the daytime, we will expect some people may come and go. They may still need to go to work or school and some may stay… but in general, we will closely monitor the situation.”
