At approximately 2:45 a.m. on October 14, 2021, a fire broke out at a tea shop on the ground floor. One survivor opened her door and saw nothing but black smoke. Others heard a loud bang, like an explosion, before the flames became visible. The lower floors had high ceilings and a glass facade that channeled fire upward with terrifying speed. Within minutes, flames reached the sixth floor and thick smoke filled every level above. The city's fire department dispatched 159 firefighters and 75 vehicles. By midday they had evacuated at least 62 people, ranging in age from eight to eighty-three. Fire chief Lee Ching-hsiu reported the blaze extinguished by 7:17 a.m., but more than 377 rescue workers remained on scene. The final toll was devastating: forty-six people dead and forty-one injured, making it the deadliest fire in Kaohsiung's history and the worst building fire in Taiwan since sixty-four people died in a Taichung karaoke bar fire in 1995.

The Cheng Chung Cheng tower had caught fire once before, in 1999, during daylight hours. Firefighters rescued twenty-eight trapped people that time, and nobody died. The warning went unheeded. By 2014, urban explorers documented burst sewer pipes on upper floors and squatters occupying the lower levels. The building's ownership was fractured among hundreds of shareholders, making coordinated maintenance nearly impossible. Authorities had been summoned to the building multiple times over the years, but the overlapping jurisdictions of fire safety, building codes, and property law created gaps wide enough for a disaster to fall through. The residents who remained were, in the words of fire chief Lee, mostly elderly people suffering from physical ailments or living with dementia. Many lived alone. They were among the most vulnerable people in the city, invisible in a building that everyone in Kaohsiung knew was dangerous.

President Tsai Ing-wen visited the site on October 16 and pledged fire safety reforms and urban renewal funding. Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai announced the city would cover medical fees for the injured and provide housing assistance for displaced residents. The fire chief and the public works bureau director both resigned. Across Taiwan, the disaster triggered immediate action: Taipei announced new fire safety laws effective January 2022, Taichung city councilors demanded inspections of aging buildings, and Tainan's mayor ordered reviews of fifty structures. On October 15, a Taoist prayer ceremony was held at the site, and the Legislative Yuan opened its session with a moment of silence. Investigators did not rule out arson. Two suspects were detained and questioned by the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office, though one was later released on bail. The investigation highlighted how piles of debris around the building may have fueled the blaze and blocked escape routes.

Civil engineers and architects inspected the burnt shell in November 2021 and declared it structurally unsound. They recommended demolition. The city proposed replacing the tower with a public park and memorial, but the complex ownership structure required buying out hundreds of shareholders, some of whom initially resisted. The city government purchased their shares at above-market rates, and demolition began on December 17, 2021. Former residents were given notice to retrieve whatever belongings they could salvage beforehand. Work proceeded floor by floor from the top down. By May 2022, the site was nearly cleared. By November 2023, a fully functional park stood where the ghost building had been, complete with a children's recreation area. The transformation was swift, but the forty-six lives lost cannot be landscaped over. The park stands as both a public amenity and an unanswerable question: how many other ghost buildings still house the people Taiwan has forgotten?