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Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service coming to you live from London. I'm Julian Warwicker.

More than four and a half thousand people live in the eight tower blocks of Wang Fook Court in Hong Kong's Taipo district.

It's a huge residential complex which dates back to the 1980s.

But in recent hours it's turned into a terrifying scene of devastation,

as one by one fires broke out, visible from miles around,

first in one block but then starting in another.

At least 36 people are known to have been killed, but the authorities say 279 more people are unaccounted for. At its height, more than 700 firefighters have been trying to tackle the blaze.

Harry Chung, a resident of the housing complex, spoke to report it.

Around quarter to three in the afternoon, I suddenly heard a very loud noise, and I looked

outside and saw that in the distance over by Block 5 there was a fire.

So I went downstairs to take a look,

and people said that Block 5 was burning really badly.

So I immediately came back home to pack up my things.

After that, I left, and I've been downstairs until now.

It's already been more than three hours.

Jason Kong is another resident.

I live in Block 1. I didn't think the fire from block three would spread so fast. My dog was at home, so I came back to bring the dog down from

the apartment. It was just around 5pm and the police wouldn't let me up. The fire wasn't yet

burning at our building. I don't know how my dog

is doing upstairs now. I'm afraid the smoke will suffocate him. But now as I watch, the fire isn't

burning so strong in my apartment. He went on to speak about his feelings.

...