The director and an electrical engineer of a registered fire service installation contractor told the independent committee investigating the deadly Wang Fuk Court fire on Monday that their repair work on the estate’s fire safety system was left unfinished.

The fire booster pumps’ main circuit breakers had been turned off by another contractor for over six months, the contractor said, making it impossible to test whether newly replaced components would work.

On the fifth day of the evidential hearing into the fatal fire, seven Wang Fuk Court residents gave testimony alongside a director and an electrical worker from Victory Fire Engineering Ltd, the registered fire service installation contractor responsible for the estate’s annual fire safety system inspection.

Wong Kin-wa, an electrical engineer with the contractor, testified that they had conducted an annual inspection of the active fire protection system, across all eight blocks of Wang Fuk Court, between March 24 and March 26 last year. The inspection covered fire hydrants and hose reels, fire alarm manual call points, rooftop water tanks, fire booster pumps, and fire up feed pumps.

While Wong and his colleague, electrical worker Li Chun-yin, were replacing the damaged manual call points on the estate on Nov 19, one week before the fire broke out, Li found the main circuit breaker for the fire booster pumps in all eight blocks, which control both the pumps and the fire alarm system, was shut down.

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Wong reported the issue to his supervisor, Victory Fire Director Chung Kit-man, who instructed Wong to speak with the estate’s management office. A staff member told Wong that another fire service installation contractor had filed a shutdown notice with the Fire Services Department on April 7 to deactivate the pumps for rooftop water tank maintenance. However, Wong recalled that no one had identified any issues with the water tanks during March’s annual inspection.

Wong acknowledged that he found the situation unusual at the time, as repairing the rooftop water tanks would not require shutting off the main power. Only individual pump switches would need to be turned off to ensure the fire alarm system remained operational, he said.

However, he assumed “the other contractor should know what they had switched off”, and did not ask which contractor had filed the shutdown notice or follow up with the Fire Services Department.

Victory Fire’s maintenance work was meant to include replacing damaged parts and conducting tests after the replacement. However, because the pump was shut down, final testing was not carried out.

Both Wong and Chung agreed, after being questioned by committee counsel Lee Shu-wun, that the full fire service works were not completed.

Wang Tai House resident Law Tak-pui told the committee he received a notice in late April stating that the fire hose reel system would be shut down from April 7 to April 20, but it made no mention of the fire alarm system.

Law said he found this questionable and inquired with the management office, which only said it was for maintenance. He added that he received only one notice and never imagined the shutdown would last that long.

Resident Yip Ka-kui said the response of government representatives sounded like they were strictly sticking to routines. For civil servants, merely following guidelines and being unwilling to go an extra mile was an insult to their duties and professionalism, he said.

“The fire was a result of a series of failures and it is crucial to reform entrenched bad practices to prevent another tragedy,” he added. “But if those responsible for this tragedy are let off lightly, it will not give residents any sense of justice. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said that accountability would be pursued regardless of rank — we hope that promise is kept.”

Contact the writer at stacyshi@chinadailyhk.com