No way out: How Hong Kong’s subdivided flats are leaving some residents in fire traps
One family’s escape from a blaze at a Cheung Sha Wan building highlights risks from bad fire safety at buildings housing many more people than they were designed to. But the law restrains officials from acting
At 5am on February 16, Wu Caiyun thought she was having a horrible nightmare when her 12-year-old daughter shook her awake, screaming at the top of her lungs: “Mum, there’s a fire!”
After having been suddenly woken up mid-sleep, nothing seemed to make sense to Wu at first. But as she opened the front door, reality sank in quickly. Her minuscule 130 sq ft flat was engulfed by choking black smoke that continued to pour in.
The smoke was coming from a fire, caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette, that was tearing its way through another subdivided unit on the third floor, right beneath Wu’s.
Smoke spread through the entire building, on Un Chau Street, Cheung Sha Wan, within minutes. As the light well and windows along the communal staircases were all boarded up, residents found themselves trapped in their flats.
“All we could think about was trying to find a way out. We certainly didn’t want to die here,” Wu said.
Wu, her husband and their daughter ended up escaping through a back door hidden behind their bunk bed that they had never opened in the 11 years they had lived there.
“At the time, we didn’t know that it would lead to a back staircase or if it would even open at all. But we thought ‘if there’s a door, there must be a way out’ so we pushed it open,” she said.