One month after the deadly Tai Po fire, survivors are slowly rebuilding their lives. In the second part of a series on how the community is moving on, Fiona Chow tells the story of one mother’s journey to find stability and hope for her young family amid loss and change. Read the first part here.
Hong Kong mother of two Christy Lee has had to rebuild her life and provide stability for her young children after losing her husband and her home in the Tai Po fire last month.
The social worker, 40, her mother-in-law and two children, aged seven and nine, had crammed into a 150 sq ft flat in transitional housing provided by the government after the inferno at the Wang Fuk Court estate on November 26.
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The blaze tore through seven of the Tai Po estate’s eight residential blocks, killing 161 people, injuring 79 others and leaving 5,000 homeless.
Lee has juggled her time over the past month between gathering essential goods from friends, getting aid from organisations and finding a home for the family, which is now solely dependent on her.
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Looking around her new 700 sq ft flat in Tai Hang village, a 15-minute drive from her old home at Wang Cheong House – where she had lived with her husband after they got married in 2015 – it sunk in on Friday just how much she had done in the past month.