“Hang in there.”
Those were the last words Mr Chung said to his wife after a huge fire broke out in their high rise public housing complex in Hong Kong‘s Tai Po district.
It was around 15:00 local time (07:00 GMT) on Wednesday when he got her panicked phone call. She said she couldn’t get out of their flat with their cat.
He rushed home from work to find the 31-storey building in flames, with black smoke billowing out of it. Firefighters in the Chinese territory took nearly 24 hours to tame the blaze that tore through seven tower blocks, including theirs, claiming at least 94 lives so far.
Nearly 300 people are still unaccounted for – Mr Chung’s wife is among the many missing.
The BBC spoke to several residents who were not at home or managed to escape in time. Some, like Mr Chung, have waited outside the burning buildings, hoping against hope. There was no alarm warning them of danger, all of them told the BBC.
Mr Chung, 45, and his brother, spent Wednesday night on the street asking the firefighters dozens of times for updates – but they couldn’t give them any.
Throughout, he said, he and his wife kept calling each other, anxious and scared. She told him she was about to faint as the smoke got thicker and thicker.
“She probably did faint,” Mr Chung told BBC Chinese on Thursday, his eyes red from tears. “I dare not call her again.”