A ‘final piano song’ offers closure as residents say goodbye to Wang Fuk Court homes

Residents of Tai Po’s Wang Fuk Court return to fire-ravaged homes, seeking mementos and closure amid 168 deaths. | Contesto: cronaca

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• A ‘final piano song’ offers closure as residents say goodbye to Wang Fuk Court homes

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Playing one last song on a piano that cannot be retrieved from a fire-ravaged home is among the wishes of residents returning to the scene of the deadly Tai Po blaze, with one man climbing stairs on a fractured leg to try and recover a water boiler linked to his childhood memories. Some of those returning to their homes on Friday had lived in Wang Cheong House, the worst-hit block, where 81 of the 168 deaths in the Tai Po fire occurred. Only five floors of the block – where 63 per cent of flats were destroyed – remained accessible, but for many, the emotional toll of the disaster overshadowed the physical damage. The piano, a family heirloom, sat in a unit too badly burned to enter safely, its owner expressing a quiet hope to simply touch the keys one final time before the building is demolished. “It’s not about the music,” he said, his voice breaking. “It’s about saying goodbye to the home that raised my children.” Nearby, a man with a fractured leg laboriously climbed the stairs to his former flat, driven by a singular goal: to retrieve a water boiler that had been in his family for decades. “That boiler was there when I was a boy, when my father made tea after work,” he explained. “I can’t let it be buried in the rubble.” The Tai Po fire, one of the deadliest in the city’s history, has left a community grappling with loss and displacement. Wang Cheong House bore the brunt of the inferno, with 81 fatalities concentrated in its corridors. Survivors described chaotic escapes through smoke-filled stairwells, while firefighters worked for hours to contain the blaze. The cause remains under investigation, but early reports suggest electrical faults may have played a role. For the 168 families who lost loved ones, the return to Wang Fuk Court was a painful pilgrimage. Beyond the immediate tragedy, the fire has reignited debates about safety standards in older public housing estates. Wang Fuk Court, built in the 1970s, lacked modern fire suppression systems and had narrow corridors that hindered evacuation. Advocacy groups have called for retrofitting of sprinklers and alarms in similar blocks across the city, warning that without action, history could repeat...

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Categoria: cronaca