Hong Kong has suffered its deadliest fire in decades. Survivors are asking how it was allowed to happen

Hong Kong (CNN) — For half an hour as the fire grew and swallowed an adjacent building, Wan watched television in his home, unaware of the danger blazing his way. Even when he heard a commotion outside and sirens wailing in the distance, he brushed it as a typically loud afternoon in Hong Kong.

It was only when he heard people screaming for help that he got up to look out the window of his eighth-floor apartment. “The instant I opened the window, I saw the smoke,” he told CNN.

By then, it was 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday – 30 minutes after an eyewitness first noticed a blaze intensifying in one of eight residential towers making up the Wang Fuk Court public housing complex.

Firefighters had arrived on the scene, but the fire had already spread to other tower blocks, which were all under reno