Name: At least 36 killed in Hong Kong fire with 279 still missing, authorities say | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-11-27T05:09:33.000Z
Duration: 3 min 31 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Let's start with the breaking news now and that is that at least 36 people have been killed in a fire at a high rise residential complex in Hong Kong.

We now know that more than 200 others are missing.

Well, let's take you live to the scene now and you can see the flames that have spread across all eight blocks of this development in the northern Taipo district.

Among those killed that we know about so far is a firefighter.

Thousands of residents have been evacuated to shelters and it's unclear yet what exactly has caused this blaze.

Well, with me now in the studio is our correspondent Graham Satchell who's across the story.

Well, Mariam, this is a terrible story that we've been following for the last sort of 10 hours or so now.

It's a tragedy that has developed and got significantly worse over that time.

The latest update that we had was from the city leader in Hong Kong, who gave us the terrible news that the death toll has risen to 36.

And that 279 people remain unaccounted for.

The first news of this broke late afternoon Hong Kong time, around 3 o'clock, when we first got reports of a fire in.

This is a very densely populated part of Hong Kong.

There are eight tower blocks with nearly 2,000 flats.

So you can see how densely populated it is.

They were built in the 1980s and they were undergoing renovation.

So they were covered in a bamboo scaffolding.

And eyewitnesses say that it was the scaffolding that initially caught fire.

So the bamboo on the outside of the building.

Firefighters have been trying to tackle the blaze all day, but it has spread from one tower to another.

And we think that now there are seven buildings in total that have been affected.

Three we think are just about under control, but four are still on fire.

And it's difficult to say where this goes now, but

the likelihood is that this will get much worse before it gets better.

The the news coming out of Hong Kong has been terrible and I think will continue to be terrible.

Graham, thank you very much indeed for that.

Graham Satchel there who's across the story.

These are live pictures that we are continuing to watch.

And firefighters, more than 700, as Graham said, have been trying to tackle this blaze for many, many hours indeed.

And as I mentioned earlier, we know that at least one firefighter, a 37-year-old, died fighting the blaze.

And the government has earlier today paid tribute to that firefighter, describing him as dedicated and gallant.

Now, we also know from a local councillor who spoke to the BBC that residents are asking for help from local authorities after losing contact with their relatives, their friends.

Remember, this is a complex that houses over four and a half thousand people, and

we know that over 200 are unaccounted for.

So as Graham mentioned there, this is just going to get worse.

And we, of course, will try and bring you as much information as we can on this breaking news story as and when we get it.