Survivors returning to the heavily damaged Wang Fuk Court homes are seeking small rituals of closure, including attempts to retrieve personal items and hear a final song on a piano. The blaze was catastrophic, resulting in dozens of deaths within the complex.

Playing one last song on a piano that cannot be retrieved from a fire-ravaged home is among the wishes of residents returning to the scene of the deadly Tai Po blaze, with one man climbing stairs on a fractured leg to try and recover a water boiler linked to his childhood memories. Some of those returning to their homes on Friday had lived in Wang Cheong House, the worst-hit block, where 81 of the 168 deaths in the Tai Po fire occurred. Only five floors of the block – where 63 per cent of flats....