The last time Sugeng Widodo spoke to his wife, Indonesian domestic worker Sri Wahyuni, something did not feel right for him.
It was around 1pm Hong Kong time on November 26, just a few hours before a devastating fire would rip through Wang Fuk Court in the city’s Tai Po district, killing at least 159 people.
Wahyuni, 42, would be among the dead – her body found in a room on a fourth-floor flat at the estate, hugging her employer, a 93-year-old woman, according to Widodo, citing information provided to him by Hong Kong’s police.
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“Usually, we would speak for around 30 minutes and just chat about her work and about our daughter’s school. But we spoke via video call for over an hour and a half,” an emotional Widodo told This Week in Asia of the final time he would get to speak to his wife.
In the hours before the tragedy, Wahyuni had gone to check on her ward, according to Widodo, and she had urged her husband not to hang up the phone and to wait for 10 minutes while she got the woman ready for her afternoon nap.
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“When she got back, she asked me to hug her over the phone, which she never did, and said she missed me more than anything,” Widodo said.
The 49-year-old carpenter later heard that a fire had broken out on the block from his wife’s sister. He did not know the block where Wahyuni was working and was desperate to find out news about her.