Hong Kong—A deadly late-night blaze gutted a subdivided apartment inside a sixty-two-year-old residential block in Jordan on Thursday, killing a sixty-nine-year-old man and forcing three hundred residents to flee. Firefighters received frantic calls at 10:00 p.m. regarding intense flames originating from a thirteenth-floor flat inside the Man Yuen Building on Ferry Street. The apartment where the fire broke out had been partitioned into nine separate micro-units, severely hindering internal navigation and escape routes.

The aging structure was completely wrapped in construction scaffolding and green plastic safety netting due to ongoing external renovation work. The external flames quickly ignited the nylon netting, creating a dramatic curtain of fire along the building's facade before emergency crews suppressed the outer perimeter. Firefighters deployed an aerial ladder and a specialized breathing apparatus team to battle the intense heat inside the narrow, choked corridors.

During a search of the heavily charred interior, rescue workers discovered the lifeless body of the elderly male victim inside one of the tiny cubicles. Four other residents were rushed to Kwong Wah Hospital for treatment, including a sixty-seven-year-old woman who sustained severe burns to her feet while escaping. The remaining tenants huddled on the wet pavement below, wrapped in emergency blankets as smoke billowed above them.

"I smelled burning plastic but heard absolutely no fire alarm during the first few minutes of the chaos," said a eleventh-floor tenant surnamed Keung, who fled down the dark stairs with wet towels. "I had to run door-to-door knocking to alert my neighbors because the hallway systems failed to activate immediately."

The incident has reignited intense anger over the structural dangers of subdivided units, which are common in the dense urban pockets of Kowloon. These low-income housing conversions frequently lack adequate emergency exits and place an unsustainable electrical load on legacy wiring grids. Building records indicate the Man Yuen Building has been undergoing extensive exterior repairs for nearly eighteen months, creating additional obstructions for emergency access.

Department officials stated that while the primary fire safety installations inside the building were legally functional, the localized alterations inside individual flats compromised structural integrity. Building inspectors spent Friday morning examining the structural stability of the thirteenth floor to ensure the ceiling columns had not warped under the intense heat. The exact cause of the electrical or accidental ignition remains under active investigation.

Social workers arrived at the scene to provide emergency shelter arrangements for dozens of displaced families who lost all their possessions in the soot-stained tower. Many of the building's occupants are low-income laborers or elderly residents who cannot afford standard private housing in the city. The local district office has set up a temporary relief center at a nearby community hall to distribute basic supplies.

Government safety teams are continuing their inspection of the building's interior infrastructure, checking for illegal structural changes on adjacent floors. The bamboo scaffolding clinging to the exterior of the tower remains partially charred, showing the vertical path the flames took during the initial outbreak. The building remains closed to the public as police forensic teams complete their assessment of the point of origin.