FREAK weather hit a family’s grief at the wake of their 76-year-old mother, who died just a day before Mother’s Day.

Picture: SHIN MIN DAILY NEWS

Gale force winds struck just before dawn yesterday, leaving a trail of destruction at her wake, almost uprooting the entire tent.

Five mourners scrambled to pin down the tent at Whampoa West, fighting against winds so strong two lamp posts and two trees nearby were snapped and broken.

The storm threatened to damage the woman’s coffin.

A valiant five-minute tug-of-war against the force of the wind prevented the tent, near Block 34, from being blown away.

The coffin, which had a glass cover, was not damaged. However, it had to be moved for the tent to be re-erected.

Police confirmed that no one was hurt.

Madam Yang Ya’na, 76, had died on Saturday morning. Her eldest son, Mr Zeng Chengfa, 58, told Shin Min Daily News that the tent was set up on Saturday afternoon.

Mr Zeng, who works at a shipyard, said that before the strong winds blew, there were five people at the wake – two sons of Madam Yang, a son-in-law, and two friends.

At about 4.30am, four of them were playing mahjong when there was a sudden, howling wind.

Mr Zeng said: ‘At that time, my brother-in-law was manning the wake. When they sensed the danger, they rushed to the tentage poles around the coffin and held on to them.’

In an instant, the wind ripped some of the 10m-long canvas sheets off the top of the tent.

The frame of the tent rattled, as if about to collapse. The men hung to the poles desperately.

For about five minutes, they relied on their collective body weight to prevent the wind from blowing the tent away.

When the wind finally stopped, parts of the tent had collapsed, covering the coffin. But underneath, the coffin was undamaged.

As they needed to move the coffin to fix the tentage, they had to call in a priest for a ceremony to close the coffin before it was moved, Mr Zeng said.

This was so that the body would not be exposed in the open.

After the tent was fixed, the priest conducted another ceremony to open the coffin again.

It is Chinese custom to leave the coffin open for the deceased’s loved ones to take a final look before it is closed on the last day of the wake.