HONG KONG: The last message Chris Wong received from her 72-year-old mother was a kindly reminder to wrap up warm as colder temperatures hit Hong Kong.
A couple of hours after her post in the family WhatsApp group, the frail woman’s high-rise apartment block was a towering inferno. She is among 200 people missing in a tragedy that has claimed at least 128 lives.
More than a third of the inhabitants of Wang Fuk Court, the subsidised housing complex that went ablaze on Wednesday (Nov 26), were over the age of 65, well above the 20 per cent average across the densely packed city.
ALONE ON THE 21ST FLOOR
Wong’s mother, who had bad joints and trouble walking, was alone on the 21st floor of one of the seven towers engulfed in the city’s worst fire in over 80 years.
“When the fire started I rushed over … I could see the outside of our flat and it was covered with flames. There was fire everywhere,” said Wong, huddled with her father and elder sister on plastic chairs in an evacuation shelter outside the smouldering towers on Thursday.
“I just stood there calling and messaging my mum, but there was just silence,” she added, tearing up.
Chim, a woman in her late 60s who asked to be identified by her surname, was one of the lucky ones.
She was watching television with her husband in her 15th floor apartment when she heard a commotion outside. She cracked open the window to see the bamboo scaffolding in the next block ablaze and sparks floating towards her building in the wind.
“Fire! Quick, get out!” she recalled her neighbours shouting. She only had time to grab some cash and her walking stick before taking the elevator down to safety.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/hong-kong-fire-families-mourn-elderly-5496026
