Influencer, 32, plunges to her death while taking photo at Hong Kong waterfall
PHOTO: Instagram/hike.sofi
PUBLISHED ONJuly 15, 2021 6:07 AMByAlexander Kyle Thirumaran
What was supposed to be a hiking trip with friends became a tragedy last Saturday (July 10) for Hong Kong influencer Sophia Cheung.
According to a report by HK01, at 11am that day, Cheung and three of her friends were leaving Tuen Man to hike at Ha Pak Lai park, a wetland area surrounded by mountains.
However at around 5pm, as the 32-year-old was taking a photo near the Tsing Dai stream, she is believed to have misplaced her footing before falling and drowning in a five-metre-deep pool.
British media reported that she fell to her death while taking selfies on the edge of a waterfall.
Subsequently, her friends called the police and first responders arrived to transport Cheung in a helicopter to Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan, where she was pronounced dead.
With over 16,000 followers, her Instagram account was known for scenic photos of her along Hong Kong's nature trails – some show her posing on the edges of rock formations.
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Netizens expressed their sadness at this tragic incident by commenting in in Cheung's latest Instagram post – many simply wrote, "RIP".
In a similar tragic incident, Taiwanese influencer Gigi Wu fell 20 to 30 metres down into a ravine and badly injured herself on a hike in January 2019. Wu had become famous for taking selfies on mountain tops dressed in a bikini.
AFP reported that the 36-year-old had called her friends via satellite phone after the fall and told them she could not move her lower body nor was she able to give her coordinates. Authorities struggled through bad weather only to retrieve her lifeless body a couple days later.
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