From Hong Kong’s deadly tower fire and surging renovation graft, to climate-fuelled floods across Asia, record weapons sales, a massive Korean data breach and collapsing Chinese tourism in Japan, this week’s Asian media coverage reveals the region’s mounting pressures and political tensions.

The Tai Po towers tragedy, Hong Kong’s worst fire in 70 years, is a human disaster, with 159 deaths and more bodies yet to be found. It is also a case of an industry, the building renovation business, bedevilled by bid-rigging and ballooning costs, says a South China Morning Post investigative report.

The story describes as feeble the official efforts to rein in collusive conduct.

It says the city is a gold mine for syndicates running the murky and rapacious renovation business, given its ageing stock of high-rise properties.

The impetus to renovate the towers at Wang Fuk Court came from an official edict in 2016. A preliminary tender in 2023 put the cost at HK$152 million ($A29 million); the final estimate last year was HK$336 million ($A65 million), the story says.

“Skyrocketing renovation costs have become commonplace,” the report says. It quotes expert Chiu Yan-loy as saying the high costs included unnecessary work and expensive techniques, from which the industry syndicates could make a profit using low-cost materials.

Final approval must come from a meeting of the owners’ corporation, Chiu said. If the vote was manipulated, by using proxy votes to control the majority, the deal could be sealed simply by buying off enough votes, he said.

A commentary in Nikkei Asia, the online politics and business magazine, reinforces SCMP’s report. It says the inferno exposed a deep rot beneath Hong Kong’s governance – years of corner-cutting, collusion and censorship.

The analysis, by University of Tokyo researcher Athena Tong, says bamboo scaffolding was blamed for the fire, even though it was clear from photos, videos and witness accounts that mesh netting and foam plates were the bigger culprits.

“By focusing on bamboo, these reports risked doing precisely what Hong Kong authorities perfected in the past five years – diverting attention from human responsibility,” Tong writes.

Nikkei Asia says in a separate story that authorities in Hong Kong and Beijing aim to keep a lid on simmering anger over the blaze. Investigators have made a dozen arrests and the Independent Commission Against Corruption says it is conducting a full investigation.

Yet people are asking questions about official accountability: residents have said they were assured of safety after raising concerns and complaints about the project over the past year.

Hong Kong will set up an independent commission, chaired by a judge, to investigate the fire, says Global Times, an official newspaper in China. It says HK Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has pledged the report will be made public.

Asian insurers accept climate change drives risks

The main characteristic of the weather systems that have caused death and devastation across four countries in south and southeast Asia is that they produced an immense amount of rain.

They were not categorised as severe storms, because of their low wind speeds. But they brought very heavy rainfalls, causing flooding and mudslides and the destruction of homes, villages, roads, bridges and communications – and, by midweek, more than 1500 deaths.

Al Jazeera has a detailed report on the causes of the destructive flooding.

The region was hit by three tropical storms – Typhoon Koto, in the western Pacific, Cyclone Senyar, which hit Indonesia so severely, and Cyclone Ditwah, which devastated Sri Lanka.

A common........

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