We handed our children to other passengers... and never saw them again: heartbreaking stories of ferry crash survivors
They tried to save young son and daughter by passing them to others as Lamma IV sank
A heartbroken couple recalled yesterday how they handed their two children to other people on the sinking boat Lamma IV and never saw them again.
Kwok Yin-tang, 37, broke down in tears at the inquiry into the Lamma ferry tragedy as his wife Wong Yee-yi, 28, was heard crying "Oh no … my daughter" in a recording of his call to police after the collision with the ferry Sea Smooth. The children were among 39 people who died in the disaster on October 1.
Kwok, a bus driver, said he heard a loud bang five minutes after the boat left Lamma Island and the family, who had been sitting on the last row of the lower deck, were knocked to the floor as the ceiling fell on them. They did not have time to put on lifejackets. As he spoke to the police, he saw water at his feet.
He first thought it was a minor accident but the situation quickly deteriorated. The fallen ceiling separated Kwok and three-year-old son Matthew from Wong and their daughter Laura, four.
Kwok took his son and ran up the passage as the boat began to tilt. They were submerged by seawater, and Kwok struggled to the surface. "As I could not swim, I shouted loudly if anybody could help to take my son. Afterwards, someone took my son out of the water," he said in a statement. Kwok lost sight of Matthew later.
Testifying next, Wong said she and Laura were trapped near the boat's staircase and she passed her daughter to a crew member.