Fire rages at recycling plant

Firemen spent hours battling an alarm No4 blaze last night at a waste recycling plant at Tai Po Industrial Estate.

The fire broke out in Dai Kwai Street at 8.53pm, forcing the evacuation of 17 people, but there were no reports of injury. Fire chiefs upgraded it to a No3 fire at 9.05pm, and a No4 at 10pm. It was brought under control at 12.34am.

It was the third major fire in little more than a week, following a fatal blaze at Cornwall Court in Mong Kok and a warehouse fire in Kwai Chung.

A source at the scene said the source of the fire was an overheated waste tyre cutting machine. Intense black smoke could be seen billowing into the sky and there were a number of explosions. A witness said a large stock of tyres were burning in an open-air storage area at the plant.

Some 150 firefighters were deployed, along with 16 jets and five breathing apparatus teams. As a precaution, water was sprayed on a number of gas tanks at the nearby Hong Kong and China Gas Company's Towngas production plant and a transformer station of CLP Power.