HONG KONG (AP) - Firefighters battled a blaze at a high-rise residential complex in Hong Kong for the second day on Thursday, as the death toll rose to 55 in one of the deadliest blazes in the city’s modern history.

Thick smoke continued to pour out of the Wang Fuk Court complex, a dense cluster of high-rise towers housing thousands of people in Tai Po district, a northern suburb near the border with the mainland. Flames can still be seen inside the buildings Thursday evening.

Hong Kong leader John Lee said contact had been lost with 279 people around midnight Thursday. Rescues were continuing in some of the towers, but authorities did not provide updates on the missing people or how many were still trapped inside the ravaged buildings Thursday during a press conference.

Firefighters ha

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