Wang Fuk Court residents make long climb to retrieve family treasures, bid farewell

Hon Wing, 77, and his family climbed 19 floors to their fire-ravaged flat in Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court housing estate on Tuesday but left almost empty-handed after a two-hour search for valuables.Hon, a retired part-time taxi driver, had hoped to find a bag of change he kept during his work shifts, but “nothing much was there” in his charred flat in Wang Sun House.His daughter Ice Hon wanted to retrieve items passed down from her late mother.“Dust and ruins are everywhere. It feels like the aftermath of a war,” she said of her childhood home.“Originally, I was thinking of looking for some photo albums … I care about these things. But nothing … nothing was left.”The family was among hundreds of residents who returned in stages to their flats to retrieve their belongings starting on Monday, five months after the inferno engulfed seven of Wang Fuk Court’s eight blocks and killed 168 people.Hon Wing’s home on the 19th floor of Wang Sun House. Photo: Handout