Bamboo scaffolding, a centuries-old approach that was historically ubiquitous in Hong Kong, is below scrutiny for its position within the metropolis’s deadliest hearth in additional than a century.
At the least 55 folks have died, and tons of are nonetheless lacking since scaffolding at a housing property in Tai Po district caught hearth on Wednesday, based on the newest authorities figures.
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Bamboo is affordable, light-weight, and powerful sufficient to resist town’s many typhoons and tropical storms. A whole bunch of bamboo poles can typically be seen lashed collectively on the facet of a contemporary workplace tower.
However might certainly one of Hong Kong’s iconic symbols even have served because the kindling for certainly one of its most horrific tragedies in a long time?
How is bamboo scaffolding used?
Buildings or housing estates – just like the one in Tai Po district – encased in bamboo throughout important renovation initiatives are usually not a uncommon sight within the city-state. Typically, the scaffolding can stay up for a yr or extra.
Bamboo scaffolding is constructed by speciality employees often called “spiders”. They lash collectively bamboo poles to construct intricate grid-like scaffolding that’s then sometimes coated in extra netting to catch development supplies.
Whereas the usage of bamboo has light in different components of Asia, it has been arduous to interchange it fully in Hong Kong, even with choices equivalent to steel scaffolding, stated specialists.
“It’s mild, low cost and quick to construct with,” Ehsan Noroozinejad, a senior researcher and development skilled at Western Sydney College, Australia, instructed Al Jazeera. “Crews carry poles by hand, reduce them on website, and wrap awkward facades with out cranes. That velocity and suppleness preserve initiatives transferring and prices down.”
As a result of it’s “mild and simple to chop”, bamboo scaffolding additionally suits the slender dwelling atmosphere of Hong Kong, stated Xinyan Huang, deputy director of the Analysis Centre for Fireplace Security Engineering at Hong Kong Polytechnic College.
However there are different causes, too, why bamboo is difficult to interchange.
“It [Hong Kong] has a protracted historical past, so it’s a custom, and it isn’t straightforward to alter custom,” Huang instructed Al Jazeera by electronic mail. “Any change within the development trade will meet a lot resistance from present gamers.”
There are 4,000 bamboo scaffolding employees within the metropolis, Hong Kong Free Press reported, citing union figures, though the trade is on the decline because of elevated competitors from steel scaffolding and an ageing cohort of employees.
Is bamboo scaffolding harmful?
Previous to the hearth, most considerations round bamboo scaffolding have centered on employee security.
There have been 22 deadly office accidents involving bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong between 2018 and 2024, based on authorities figures. Six accidents occurred whereas new scaffolding was being constructed, whereas the remaining befell throughout repairs.
Apart from the truth that bamboo is by its very nature flamable, it is usually structurally weaker and fewer secure than metal, based on Huang. He instructed Al Jazeera that it needs to be phased out for bigger initiatives.
“I feel the bamboo scaffolding can be utilized for small-scale purposes, equivalent to putting in an air-con unit and changing a window of a room. Nevertheless, the large-scale utilization equivalent to protecting the complete constructing facade needs to be stopped. Maybe, a most space of bamboo scaffolding may be outlined in future regulation,” he stated.
What position did bamboo scaffolding play within the Tai Po hearth?
The hearth is the deadliest in Hong Kong in additional than a century, since a blaze in 1918 on the Joyful Valley Racecourse in British Hong Kong led to the deaths of greater than 600 folks.
Bamboo scaffolding performed a giant position in spreading the hearth, based on specialists like Anwar Orabi, a lecturer in hearth security engineering on the College of Queensland, though it was helped by different supplies within the property.
The hearth broke out on the scaffolding of one of many property’s towers on Wednesday, however the velocity with which the hearth unfold took many observers without warning. Orabi stated the design of the scaffolding made it troublesome to maintain the blaze restricted to only a few flooring.
“In my viewpoint, the scaffolding offered a path for the hearth to unfold vertically which compromised compartmentation. The hearth ‘climbed’ the scaffolding, and ignited the a number of gas sources in folks’s properties,” he instructed Al Jazeera by electronic mail.
“Fireplace can break home windows by imposing a robust warmth flux [flow of heat] which heats up the glass and breaks it. Additionally it is doable that many individuals left their home windows open leading to ingress of the hearth. This resulted in a multi-storey hearth,” he stated. Warmth radiation and embers from one constructing helped unfold the hearth to the following, he stated, finally engulfing seven towers.
Hong Kong officers additionally say substandard development supplies have been one other contributing issue. The South China Morning Publish reported that the netting positioned over the scaffolding didn’t adhere to the hearth code, citing native officers.
Senior police superintendent Eileen Chung stated extremely flammable Styrofoam boards had additionally been positioned in home windows within the housing property’s lifts, public broadcaster RTHK reported, serving to the hearth unfold.
Two administrators and one engineering guide from the corporate behind the development have been detained, Chung confirmed.
Hong Kong’s chief, John Lee Ka-chiu, has promised that each one housing estates present process important enhancements will now be inspected.
“The federal government has instantly organized for inspections of all housing estates throughout town present process main repairs, to look at the protection of scaffolding and constructing supplies,” he wrote on Fb.
