Rescuers share their life and death struggle
Firemen tells of saving one girl then grieving for another who died despite his best efforts
Two fathers pulled out from the sinking vessel separately pleaded with fireman Wong Tsz-kiu to save their daughters.
Wong rescued one, but he was only able to retrieve the limp body of an eight-year-old girl inside the dark cabin.
"I remember it very clearly - I pulled her out of the water unconscious and performed CPR on her hoping to resuscitate her," said Wong, who was the first to arrive at the scene with two of his colleagues just before 9pm. "Then I handed her over to the paramedics in the main boat, and they told me she was gone. Only then did I cry."
Wong, who has been a fireman for 13 years, recounted the horrors - but also the bravery - of Monday night at a press conference of emergency workers yesterday.
"We got there and the boat was already jutting straight out of the water," he said.
His team broke open a window on the right side of the boat and started pulling people out. The three in Wong's team pulled out about 30 people from the cabin before moving on to other rescue work.
Wong recalled pulling out the final three people whose heads were face down in the water - an elderly woman, an adult and the eight-year-old girl.