Hong Kong has suffered its deadliest fire in decades. Survivors are asking how it was allowed to happen

Video Ad Feedback How Hong Kong’s fire turned deadly 2:40 • Source: CNN

How Hong Kong’s fire turned deadly 2:40 Hong Kong —

For half an hour as the fire grew and swallowed an adjacent building, Wan watched television in his home, unaware of the danger blazing his way. Even when he heard a commotion outside and sirens wailing in the distance, he brushed it as a typically loud afternoon in Hong Kong.

It was only when he heard people screaming for help that he got up to look out the window of his eighth-floor apartment. “The instant I opened the window, I saw the smoke,” he told CNN.

By then, it was 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday – 30 minutes after an eyewitness first noticed a blaze intensifying in one of eight residential towers making up the Wang Fuk Court public housing complex