When Indonesian domestic helper Darwati sent her husband a video from Hong Kong, he had no idea it would be the last time he heard her voice.
Eli Cahyono, 39, picked up his phone in the small hamlet of Bendasari in Indonesia’s Cilacap Regency on November 26 and saw a video message from his wife. Moments later, disbelief turned to panic.
Darwati, 48, was trapped in a blaze tearing through one of the towers at Wang Fuk Court in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district. Through the haze of thick black smoke, she spoke to her husband one final time in a frantic mix of Javanese and Bahasa Indonesia, describing her struggle to breathe and her desperate attempt to escape.
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“I could see that there was already so much smoke in the room,” Cahyono said. “It was so difficult to see my wife like that … she could barely talk because the smoke was so thick.”
He tried calling her immediately. There was no answer. Over the next few hours, his messages went unread.
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Four days later, on November 30, Hong Kong authorities confirmed that Darwati and the elderly woman she cared for had both died in the fire.