‘Just silence’: Families mourn elderly loved ones after Hong Kong inferno

By James Pomfret and David Kirton

HONG KONG (Reuters) -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, were over the age of 65, well above the 20% 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.

HOME FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS

Outside, the elderly couple watched in horror as the apartment they had lived in for more than 40 years was slowly engulfed in flames.

“We came down and just watched the fire. We watched it burn. There was nothing else we could do, just watched and hoped it wouldn’t keep burning,” Chim said.

The apartments, built in 1983, were part of an affordable housing scheme aimed at getting low income residents on the property ladder in one of the world’s most expensive real estate markets.

Around 37% of the 4,643 residents in the complex are now aged 65 or above, realtor Centaline said, citing the latest census data.

Residents of the housing complex had for more than a year complained about fire hazards posed by the renovation works, a Reuters investigation found.

One flagged the difficulty elderly residents would face escaping if an accident occurred, while another said the foam panels that covered the windows would leave many elderly, alone and immobile, in darkness, according to a forum for residents on Facebook reviewed by Reuters.

Police said they had arrested three construction company officials on suspicion of manslaughter for using unsafe materials, including the flammable foam. The company has not responded to requests for comment. The Independent Commission Against Corruption arrested eight others on Friday.

‘THEY DIDN’T MAKE IT’

David Ho’s 73-year-old ex-wife and his son who lived on a high floor of one of the towers are also among the missing, he told Reuters as he sat alone on a park bench staring at the burnt tower blocks on Friday. The last he heard from his son was on November 20, the son’s birthday, when he wrote back “thanks dad”.

“I’m a positive, carefree person. If this didn’t happen, I’d live happily. Before I’d go to elderly centres, and ride my bicycle everywhere but now I don’t want to do anything at all. I feel very sad,” the 75-year-old pensioner said. “It’s clear they didn’t make it.”

Michelle Liu, a volunteer counsellor, spent much of the day roaming parks and shelters around the burnt out buildings, offering support for families and the many elderly people impacted by the disaster.

“They were quite emotional, I realised sometimes that money is important to them, but more important is for someone to be there with them in this difficult time to accompany them,” she said.

“The people here feel a little bit lost at the moment, especially the people that I talked to. They don’t know what will happen to them.”

COLLECTING CLOTHING, BEDDING AND MEDICATION

Some elderly residents queued at a medical station in a shelter for fresh supplies of medication for longer-term conditions including high blood pressure and diabetes, while others stocked up on free supplies offered by volunteers in an adjacent housing estate, including clothes and bedsheets.

Chris Wong said she stood for six hours just staring helplessly at the burning building and trying to reach her mother as the blaze raged.

“I felt completely helpless … my mum couldn’t walk properly, she had bad joints in both her knees … and there was no one to help her.”

Her father, who was out when the tragedy struck, added: “We have heard nothing. We have to slowly accept the reality.”

A police announcement on a loudspeaker in the evacuation centre called for relatives to go to a nearby community hall to identify bodies. Wong and her elder sister sobbed quietly.

(Reporting by James Pomfret and David Kirton in Hong Kong; Additional reporting by Greg Torode, Clare Jim in Hong Kong and Claire Fu in Singapore; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Alison Williams)