Boy falls to death from public housing block in Hong Kong

Hong Kong police launched an investigation into the death of a boy who fell from a public housing block on an outlying island on Monday.

Emergency personnel were called to Yat Tung Estate in Tung Chung on Lantau Island at around 5.25pm after the boy, believed to be around five years of age, was found outside Yu Yat House, according to the force.

A police spokeswoman said the non-Chinese victim was certified dead on the spot.

A source familiar with the case said the boy’s mother, 34, left the family’s 12th-floor flat of the building to pick up her seven-year-old daughter from school in the afternoon, leaving her two sons, aged three and five, at home.

The woman said when she returned home, her two sons were still inside the premises, but one son was found to have gone missing shortly thereafter, an insider said.