The Hong Kong housing complex impacted by today’s fire is surrounded by bamboo scaffolding, as we’ve reported.
Bamboo scaffolding is ubiquitous across the city’s dense, vertical urban landscape. These scaffolds are erected on skyscrapers, hundreds of feet high, and encased in fabric safety nets forming colorful cocoons of green, blue and purple.
Bamboo scaffolding is not only used in the construction of new buildings, but the renovation of thousands of high-rises and historic tenements (“tong lau”) every year.
However, due to safety concerns, its use is declining as the government has moved to phase it out in favor of metal scaffolding. The Hong Kong government’s Development Bureau announced that 50% of new public building projects erected from March onwards would need to use metal scaffolding to “better protect workers” and align with modern construction standards in “advanced cities.”
There were 24 deaths related to bamboo scaffolding from January 2018 to August 2025, according to Hong Kong’s Labour Department
