Dignity for the dead: 6 Hongkongers form city’s first corpse restoration team

Team under funeral information platform RIPHK has handled more than 10 cases since December, including victims of Tai Po fire

A group of Hongkongers have started the city’s first corpse restoration team, aiming to provide affordable reconstruction services for badly disfigured bodies so the dead can be buried with dignity and their families can find some comfort.

The six-member team, under local funeral information sharing platform RIPHK, has handled more than 10 cases since it started operations last December, including victims who died in the Tai Po fire in November.

After the disaster, a professional corpse restoration team from Taiwan was invited to handle the bodies of fire victims and the team’s members helped out during the process.

“Then we started our own team so that we could offer affordable services to locals,” Chan Yan, a restorer at RIPHK, said.

The inferno broke out at the Wang Fuk Court residential complex on November 26 last year, killing 168 people and displacing about 5,000 residents. It was the worst blaze in the city since 1948.

“When we restored the bodies, family members were satisfied that the deceased could leave the world with dignity,” Chan added.