Triple murder-suicide tragedy shocks Hong Kong

HONG KONG, Oct 15 (Reuters) A Hong Kong mother is believed to have tied up her two children and thrown them from a 24-storey flat before killing herself in a domestic tragedy that has renewed calls for improved social welfare.

The mother, surnamed Mak, 36, her 12-year old daughter and nine-year-old son were found dead yesterday beside the block of flats in the northern Tin Shui Wai district near the border with China. A suicide note was found in the flat.

The case has been classified as a suspected murder-suicide.

''The hands and feet of the little girl were tied up and the little boy's hands were tied up,'' police spokesman Albert Ng was quoted as saying in the South China Morning Post.

The woman, a new immigrant wife from mainland China, had a history of mental illness. The family had been on social welfare, with Mak's unemployed Hong Kong husband in hospital with cancer.

Dubbed a ''social time bomb'', the district of Tin Shui Wai has been beset by a string of domestic violence tragedies.

In 2004, a man stabbed his mainland Chinese wife and two young daughters to death before killing himself. Last year, three women in their 30s committed collective suicide.

REUTERS SS AS1005