'I felt completely helpless': Couple tell how they lost their life's work in devastating Hong Kong fire
Woman crying at a makeshift memorial for the victims of the fire in Hong Kong right near the buildings consumed by the flames, PHOTO: Vernon Yuen / Zuma Press / Profimedia
A married couple in their 70s who lost their apartment in a deadly fire in Hong Kong described on Wednesday how they were having afternoon tea at a nearby restaurant when their daughter alerted them to the fire at their apartment complex, Reuters reports.
The couple, surnamed Leung, rushed to the site of their home.
“It all happened in just one or two hours. I sat there and watched block after block go up in flames – my legs were so weak I could barely stand on them,” Ms Leung said with tears in her eyes.
“I felt completely helpless when I saw what was happening. I still don't understand how the fire could spread so violently, consuming block after block,” she said.
40 years of memories in one home
Returning to the scene, the mother and her daughter, Bonnie, laid flowers and stood in silence at a memorial near the flaming towers.
They looked at the destroyed buildings that had housed many of their fondest memories and both were overcome with grief.
“Everything I've collected over decades is gone,” Ms Leung told Reuters moments later. “I should have spent my later years there quietly, spending free time with my husband, walking along the park near the house. These moments are now just memories,” she added.
Leung, 71, and her 76-year-old husband had lived in Block E of Wang Fuk Court for about 40 years before the fire broke out. They had bought the approximately 46 square meter apartment from the woman's younger sister, to whom they paid over one million Hong Kong dollars (about US$128,458).
When the building required major repairs worth HK$160,000, they managed to raise 140,000 of the amount, and now they fear they will never get their money back.
“It was scary”
The images and sounds of the catastrophe still haunt Leung, even a week after the disaster that killed at least 159 people.
“It was scary,” she said. “The bamboo scaffolding was creaking and there was a noise like windows exploding – the flames were completely out of control.”
All the residents of the Wang Fuk Court complex, more than 4,000 people, were evacuated due to the worst fire in decades, and many are now housed in temporary housing.
Leung and her husband decided to live with their eldest daughter, Bonnie's sister, after visiting temporary housing provided by the government. For an elderly couple, they say, the temporary housing was simply too far from the environment they were used to.
“The government needs to pay attention so that disasters like this don't happen again, leaving people like us with no one to turn to. I just hope that what happened to us helps those who are now dealing with building renovation problems – so that no one else has to go through the same pain,” she concluded.
