Reporting tragic events can be extremely depressing, but SCMP reporter Choi Chi-yuk says the occasional good it brings makes it all worthwhile.
One story he wrote helped fund a year of education for a poor, dangerously overworked girl.
In the rural county of Yizheng, Choi was shocked to meet 11-year-old Tan Yuke who laboured at a hazardous fireworks factory to pay for her school entrance fee.
Yuke had to work overtime in the illegal sweat shop to make up for the time lost during the February snowstorm that paralysed the area.
It was one of the deadliest workplaces in the world. The week before Choi wrote the story, four villagers in Foshan were injured after more than 15,000 cartons of fireworks exploded, triggering tremors of 1.1 on the Richter scale.
On April 6, 2001, 41 primary pupils - being forced to make fireworks to pay for their school fees - were killed in a huge explosion that reduced the buildings to rubble in Wanzai, Jiangxi province .
Just before Choi wrote the story, the area in Hunan province endured the worst blizzard in a decade. Yuke and hundreds of other children suffered frostbite to their hands.