Hong Kong. Hong Kong firefighters found dozens more bodies Friday during an intensive apartment-by-apartment search of a high-rise tower complex, after a massive fire engulfed seven of its eight buildings. The death toll in one of the city's deadliest blazes is now at least 128.

Crews prioritized apartments from which they received more than two dozen calls for assistance during the blaze but were unable to reach, Derek Armstrong Chan, a deputy director of Hong Kong Fire Services, told reporters.

The toll was increased by 34 after more bodies were found in the blackened towers, and Secretary for Security Chris Tang told reporters at the scene that the search for victims was continuing and the numbers could still rise.

Eighty-nine of the recovered bodies have not yet been identified, Tang said. Some 200 people remain unaccounted for. Overall, he said he expected the investigation into the fire to last at least three to four weeks.

Andy Yeung, the director of Hong Kong Fire Services, said that first responders found that some fire alarms in the complex were not functioning and that there could be legal consequences.

The fire started midafternoon Wednesday in one of the Wang Fuk Court complex's eight towers, jumping rapidly from one to the next as bamboo scaffolding covered in netting in place for renovations caught ablaze until seven buildings were engulfed.

It took firefighters some 24 hours to bring the blaze under control, and even nearly two days later, smoke continued to drift out of the charred skeletons of the buildings from the occasional flare-up.

It was not declared fully out until Friday morning.

In total, 2,300 firefighters and medical personnel were involved in the operation, and 12 firefighters were among the 79 people injured overall, Yeung said. One firefighter was also killed, he had said previously.

The fire was the deadliest in Hong Kong in decades. A 1996 fire in a commercial building in Kowloon killed 41 people. A warehouse fire in 1948 killed 176 people, according to the South China Morning Post.

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