Shipyard fire in Hong Kong’s Aberdeen put out after 4-hour battle
Boats being repaired were made of fibreglass so fire spread quickly, officials say
A blaze erupted at a Hong Kong shipyard on Friday, forcing the evacuation of 61 people before firefighters put it out following a more than four-hour battle.
Samuel Wu Wai-hung, the Fire Services Department’s divisional officer for Hong Kong West, said the cause of the blaze in Aberdeen was still being investigated.
The sheer scale of the fire and the large amount of fibreglass at the site were the main difficulties for personnel, he said.
“The fire involved interconnected shipyards that were built using sheet metal. Most of the boats that were being repaired inside were made of fibreglass, so it led to fire spreading really quickly,” Wu said.
“We will not rule out all the reasons that could have caused the fire. We will investigate from all directions and all angles to find the cause of the fire.”
He said the first building that caught fire was at a shipyard at 18 Shum Wan Road, adding the size of the blaze also posed a challenge for firefighters.
