The burnt-out towers of the Wang Fuk Court apartment complex were still smouldering when Hong Kong authorities shifted gear.

As grief turned to anger at the scale of the loss of life, officials moved quickly to stamp out percolating political dissent, using the national security rationale and tools that had brought Hong Kong to heel under Beijing’s control five years earlier.

Police carry bodies of victims out of Wang Fuk Court on Sunday.Credit: Getty Images

The city’s deadliest fire in decades, which has so far claimed 159 lives, with 31 people still missing, occurred just before Hong Kong’s Legislative Council election, which will be held on Sunday.

It will be the second election since Beijing’s national security crackdown in 2020 quashed political dissent in the city, when hundreds of opposition legislators, pro-democracy activists, media figures and trade unionists were arrested. Since then, the electoral process has been overhauled to permit a “patriots”-only system of government.

Nonetheless, the fire has stoked Hong Kong authorities’ anxieties about a resurgence of political activism, with the disaster serving as a test of whether the city’s once-vibrant civic life could still mobilise after five years.

By Sunday, authorities had detained at least two people for criticising the government’s response, as Beijing warned it would take action against anyone who used the fire to “plunge” Hong Kong back into “chaos”.

University student Miles Kwan, 24, was arrested for “seditious intention” after launching a petition with four demands for government accountability over the fires, which quickly amassed 10,000 signatures before it was taken down. Former Hong Kong district councillor Kenneth Cheung was detained after he made critical comments on social........

© The Sydney Morning Herald