Two Tai Po-based preachers offering emotional support to survivors of Hong Kong’s deadliest fire in seven decades have said their work has forced them to confront their own traumas from the tragedy.
Jessie Fu Kam-wah and Ron Cheng King-on, both members of the Chinese Rhenish Church in Tai Po, said they had met elderly people displaced by the fire and struggling with the shock of losing loved ones.
Cheng also said he knew someone who had died in the blaze, while Fu described coming across an elderly man who had waited for news about three family members who had been unaccounted for, only to learn they were all dead.
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“I chose to sit with him for a while, staying with him,” she told the Post in an interview.
“We couldn’t do anything because he was waiting for news, but I wanted him to know that if he needed anything, there were people by his side.”
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The fire at Wang Fuk Court broke out on November 26, lasting for 43 hours and ravaging seven of the estate’s eight buildings. At least 160 people died in the blaze, nearly 5,000 were displaced and six remain missing.