The city's worst blaze in decades broke out on Nov. 26 and rapidly engulfed seven of eight buildings in an apartment complex.

The police said they expected the death toll of 128 to rise as the authorities began combing through the charred apartment towers.

Firefighters combing the charred tower complex found dozens more bodies, officials said Friday, as smoke still drifted into the air of the Chinese territory.

A blaze that ripped through a massive apartment block in Hong Kong has claimed at least 94 lives, surpassing the toll of a similar incident at London's Grenfell Tower in 2017.

After Beijing reshaped the political order in Hong Kong in its image, the fire has become a test of how well that new system can govern in a crisis.

While the exact cause of the deadly inferno that swept across a Hong Kong apartment complex was unknown, questions have been raised about the role of the bamboo scaffolding that enveloped the buildings at the time of the fire.

BEIJING, Nov 29 (Reuters) - China announced a sweeping inspection of fire-safety standards in high-rise buildings nationwide on Saturday after a deadly fire in Hong Kong left at least 128 people dead, moving to avert any comparable disaster on the mainland.