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More than four months after a deadly fire ravaged their Hong Kong apartment blocks, former residents will soon be allowed return to their flats for a short window to collect belongings. Fanny Mok is among dozens of people who are learning to use borrowed exoskeleton legs to climb the stairs. - REUTERS

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00:01Fanny Mok is preparing to go back to her former home in Hong Kong's northern Taipur district,
00:07more than four months after a deadly fire engulfed her block.
00:11Former residents will be allowed to return to their flats for the first time from April 20 to May 4.
00:16Each household will have a three-hour window to collect belongings.
00:21Mok, who is nearly 60, is among dozens of former residents,
00:25borrowing exoskeleton legs and training to climb stairs with them in a nearby building.
00:31My knees hurt, I don't have enough strength, and I get short of breath, she says.
00:36Her apartment, where she lived for 30 years, is on the 13th floor, and there are no longer any lifts.
00:42Mok will have to carry what she can and make more than one trip.
00:47I hope I can find the things I want to take back.
00:50If I can't find them the first time, then a second time, and if not, then a third time.
00:56Actually, there's no way to move back in anymore.
00:59If it were possible to move back, I would want to.
01:02But since we can't go back to live there now, we have to think about how to retrieve the things
01:08we want.
01:09Maybe some items can still be used, so we try to take them back over several trips.
01:15The fire in late November torched Wang Fuk Court, killing 168 people and displacing more than 4,000.
01:24Helped by an NGO called AidVengers Federation, former residents must pass a test before being allowed to operate the exoskeletons.
01:33The NGO says the pass rate has been 70%.
01:37Its robotic legs are made by Hypershell, a Shanghai-based robotics company.
01:43More than a third of the complex's former residents are aged over 65.
01:48Most now live in temporary accommodation across the city.
01:5261-year-old Betty Ho hopes to retrieve cash and photo albums from her 15th floor home of 35 years.
02:00The climb won't be the only hard part.
02:03The government only gives you three hours.
02:05It's strange.
02:06How can you take everything you've lived with for decades out in just three hours?
02:10It's basically impossible.
02:11Letting go of things is really very difficult.
02:13How can you walk away from where you were sitting at a hospital?
02:142.
02:14Why can you walk away from one hospital?
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