By Jessie Pang and Joyce Zhou
HONG KONG, April 23 (Reuters) – Nearly five months after a devastating blaze tore through Hong Kong’s Wang Fuk Court residential complex, Jason Kong took a small torchlight and returned to his blackened apartment for the first time on Thursday, looking for mementoes of his dog.
The construction company owner had to leave 10-year-old poodle Bear Bear behind when police stopped him from entering his apartment tower as the blaze took hold on November 26.
Reuters first interviewed Kong as he watched the flames tear through the seven 31-storey tower blocks in the northern Tai Po district. The city’s deadliest fire in decades, it killed 168 people and took firefighters nearly two days to bring under control.
Firefighters saved Bear Bear the day after the fire started. They put the poodle in an oxygen box, but he had inhaled too much smoke and died later that night.
Returning with his son, 65-year-old Kong said the visit was a painful reminder of what they had lost.
“My son was most affected when he saw the dog’s food and its food bowl,” he said. “It really saddened him.”
Wearing a hard hat, Kong said he was only able to retrieve around 10% of his belongings.
“My son is heartbroken. He searched for stuff as a keepsake,” Kong said, visibly emotional. He collected items including his birth certificate, photos and clothes in the limited three-hour window that the authorities allowed them to be inside.
“My mood was bad,” he said. “I needed to think about what to take, what not to take…I felt a connection to the whole apartment.”
(Reporting by Jessie Pang and Joyce Zhou; Writing by Farah Master; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
