Even though the charred towers of Wang Fuk Court remain cordoned off and guarded, hundreds of Hongkongers and visitors streamed to the site on Saturday afternoon to lay white flowers along the police tape, turning the pavement into a sprawling shrine for the more than 100 lives lost in this week’s merciless blaze.
By late afternoon, the queue of mourners, including children clutching single stems and elderly residents leaning on walking sticks, stretched for dozens of meters and showed no sign of thinning as dusk fell.
Some stood in silent prayer with eyes closed, others wiped away tears, while a few gently placed handwritten notes among the blooms, urging the authorities to uncover the truth and wishing the dead eternal peace.
Among the crowd was a traveler from Dalian who had made a special detour to pay respects, quietly adding his bouquet to the growing carpet of white.
Fruit baskets and encouragement cards for survivors appeared alongside the flowers, small gestures of solidarity in a city still struggling to absorb the scale of its worst residential fire disaster.
