How a Hong Kong tenement fire killed 44 and left 386 homeless in Sham Shui Po
No extinguishers and 50lbs of fireworks help the blaze, which started in a joss stick shop on the ground floor, blocking the only stairway
“Forty-three people were burned to death and 20 others were injured in the fire which broke out early yesterday morning in Un Chau-street, Shamshuipo,” reported the South China Morning Post on August 2, 1962. While the cause of the blaze, which began at 2.37am, was unknown, the director of the Fire Services, told the Post: “The fire started in the left-hand front section of 488 Un Chau-street among a considerable quantity of joss-sticks, papers and the various raw materials used in their manufacture. The fire was further aggravated by a quantity, possibly amounting to 50-lbs, of fireworks stored on the premises.”
The flames mushroomed through an eight-foot hole in the tenement building’s mezzanine level and quickly reached the upper floors, where residents were sleeping, as well as the roof, via the scavenging lane. “This had the effect of blocking the ground floor and the rooftop exits of the single stairway and preventing escape of the occupants,” the Post reported.
“A total of 115 families comprising 386 people have been left homeless by Wednesday morning’s fire,” reported the Post on August 3. Many slept in the covered playground of a nearby school, where they were fed two hot meals a day.
The death toll rose to 44 on August 5 after a 10-year-old boy died in hospital.
Among those taking at the school were 127 people who had lived on the rooftop. According to an On August 8 article in, the Post, reported they would be “offered assistance at the rate of $100 per family to help them rebuild their homes on the allotted sites” at allotted sites , which were in the Wong Tai Sin district. The remaining occupants were expected to return to their homes after “rituals for the appeasement of the souls of the 44 who died in the fire were held”.”
In October, an inquest found the fire had been started accidentally in the ground-floor Kun Tuk Lam Joss Stick shop and that the shop owners had tried to extinguish the flames. “We strongly believe that if there had been any fire extinguishers on the premises the fire could have been put out when it had just started,” the jury of three commented.
Hong Kong was plagued by severe water shortages throughout the 1960s. “With the present water restrictions it would have been impossible to put out [the fire],” the coroner told those present at the inquiry.
