When a Hong Kong resident surnamed Chow opened his front door at Shek Kip Mei Estate on Sunday, he was met by a dense wall of black soot.
“[The smoke] was cutting my throat and nose, and my eyes won’t stop tearing,” said the man in his forties as he recounted the harrowing struggle with his wife and dogs, after a fire broke out a few doors away from his home, leaving one man dead and eight injured.
As the fire erupted in a cluttered flat on the 21st floor of Mei Yue House on Sunday morning, toxic smoke from the home soon spread to other nearby apartments via the corridor.
“I slammed the door and immediately used wet towels to seal the gaps around the door frame,” said Chow, who works in the fire services engineering industry.
Moments after he reported the fire to police, Chow said he considered drastic ways to save his wife in the face of the sheer volume of smoke.
“I was just thinking of pushing my wife out through the window to climb out,” he said.
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