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HONG KONG — As smoke quickly filled the corridors of a 31-story tower in Hong Kong last week, Rhodora Alcaraz found herself trapped alone with a 3-month-old baby.
The 28-year-old migrant worker had arrived in the Chinese territory from the Philippines only a day earlier to work for a family living in a high-rise housing estate. When a massive fire ignited in the middle of the afternoon, tearing across seven of the estate’s eight buildings, Alcaraz shielded the baby in her arms and was rescued by firefighters just in time, along with her employer’s elderly mother.
Hong Kong, an international financial hub of 7.5 million people, is home to hundreds of thousands of domestic helpers like Alcaraz, mostly women from low-income Asian countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia.
The bravery of Alcaraz and other domestic helpers during the Nov. 27 blaze at Wang Fuk Court in the northern district of Tai Po, which killed at least 159 people, has put a spotlight on the critical role they play in the city, where they work for low wages and often live in cramped homes alongside employers who heavily rely on them for housework and caregiving.
At least 10 domestic helpers were killed in the fire, including nine from Indonesia and one from the Philippines.
“We are truly grateful for their selflessness and also their heroic acts during the fire,” Chris Sun, Hong Kong’s secretary for labor and welfare, told reporters Tuesday.
He added that families of the domestic helpers who died will receive about 800,000 Hong Kong dollars ($100,000) in condolence and compensation payments.
The Tai Po fire, the deadliest in Hong Kong in almost 80 years, has shocked and angered the public amid accusations of corrupt business practices and failures in government oversight. Authorities say the rapid spread of the five-alarm fire was caused by the use of highly flammable materials around the buildings during renovations.
Hong Kong’s top leader, John Lee, said this week that a judge-led independent committee would be set up to “review” the fire, which displaced thousands of people from their homes. Almost two dozen people have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and fraud in separate investigations.
Alcaraz was still recovering in the hospital and was seen wearing purple scrubs and a mask in a picture posted by Philippines Sen. Imee Marcos.
“I salute you, Rhodora, and all overseas foreign workers who continue to sacrifice for their families even while far from home,” she said in a Facebook post Sunday after visiting Alcaraz in the hospital.
While authorities and aid agencies announced several support measures for affected residents, including transitional housing and a donor-supported reconstruction fund that has raised about 2.8 billion Hong Kong dollars ($360 million), the fire creates additional uncertainty for domestic helpers, who live in Hong Kong on dedicated visas and are entitled to far fewer rights than a typical resident.
A helper’s salary starts at about $650 a month.
Even with an additional food allowance of about $160, they still earn below the minimum wage in Hong Kong, which at about $5.40 an hour amounts to $860 a month for a 40-hour workweek. They are also ineligible for permanent residency, which in most cases can be obtained by living in the city for seven years.
Many domestic helpers are mothers themselves, sending most of their earnings to their children back home to support their education.
“They have deep trauma now. Whenever they pass by the building, they always cry. Some had friends who died in that building,” said Sring Sringatin, a domestic helper in Hong Kong who is chair of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union.
Sringatin said helpers from Wang Fuk Court were still residing with their employers, either in temporary shelters or alternative housing. Previously, they would often share a room with the family’s children. Now that their employers are homeless, accommodating helpers has become even more difficult, according to Sringatin and other aid workers who have met with affected helpers.
It is also unclear whether employers whose homes have been destroyed will be able to pay their salaries on time, even as the workers — who are so embedded with families that they often act as the primary caregivers to children and elderly relatives — continue providing care.
“They just follow the families if there is care to be given,” said Johannie Tong, a community relations officer for the nonprofit group Mission for Migrant Workers.
“It’s like a default for them. The disaster has happened, but they are still working. They don’t have this question, whether I should work,” said Tong, who visited some of the displaced workers over the past week in government-run temporary shelters that journalists could not access.
Before the fire, workers got little time to themselves. In most cases they worked six days a week, meeting fellow workers on Sundays at parks and other public places to sing karaoke, do each other’s nails or enjoy picnics. Now they are not only traumatized, but they may also be facing more pressure at work and feeling isolated at a time when they are far away from their families, Tong and Sringatin said.
“They are trying their best to perform their duties, but at the same time they need to be strong, because as a domestic worker there is this feeling that they don’t have anyone in here,” Sringatin said.
Tong said her charity was trying to determine what kind of long-term help workers might need, including immigration assistance or support for their families back home. In the short term, she said, there are ample donations at their center in Hong Kong’s Jordan neighborhood, where workers on Monday were sorting through clothes, toiletries, medicines and more.
Mission for Migrant Workers said it had obtained a SIM card for Alcaraz to use to communicate with her family back in the Philippines.
“Since she hasn’t recovered her voice yet, she just gave a thumbs-up and smiled to express her joy and appreciation,” the charity said Wednesday.
