Hong Kong’s worst fire in generations fuels scrutiny of safety lapses

HONG KONG — In Hong Kong, a city where millions of residents sleep, eat, and work high above the ground in towers pressed together like books on a shelf, there has long been the threat that a massive fire could trap people inside their high-rises. By Thursday, the scale of that nightmare emerged, as an inferno that had begun with one 32-story building quickly engulfed six other towers at an aging apartment complex. Early Friday morning, authorities said that at least 83 people had died in the blaze and dozens of people were still unaccounted for, making it the deadliest…