Hong Kong is an Instagrammer’s paradise, complete with striking cityscapes and a hip restaurant scene.
However – like every city – it has its darker places, hidden away from the brightness and chatter of everyday life.
And there are some people with the curiosity and steely nerves to explore such locations, capturing their secret corners on film for the rest of us.
Cody, Steve, John and Josh are urban explorers; well versed in wandering strange and lonely places. But even they were not expecting to hear the voices of disembodied children in the decrepit remains of Hong Kong Central Hospital.
Hong Kong Central Hospital was once the largest abortion hospital in the entirety of Hong Kong, conducting around 60 per cent of the city’s terminations. It is estimated around 6,000 abortions took place there annually.
The building was somewhat controversial in its day. Addressing the issue of doctors heading to the mainland for work, the church gave away land to build the hospital way back in 1966.
The building has been left to rot after its closure in 2012. Hospital officials sold whatever they could as quickly as possible.
However, many pieces of equipment, documents and other echoes of the building’s history lie discarded and ripe for exploration.
This sort of space is a goldmine for inquisitive urban explorers, and so the lads decided to pay a visit for themselves, recording their adventures on camera.
Check out the seriously creepy exploration for yourself below:
[ooyala player_id=”5df2ff5a35d24237905833bd032cd5d8" width=”undefined” height=”undefined” pcode=”twa2oyOnjiGwU8-cvdRQbrVTiR2l” code=”9ocmszZjE6t03slaDGge7xIhLchv6RAC”]
The footage begins somewhat ominously, with Josh informing fans:
The noises are getting closer, the voices are getting closer. We are so certain they’re here.
The gang had been hearing strange noises since they arrived, which sounded eerily like the voices of children inside the building.
Clearly a little unnerved, they began to search for the mysterious source as they wandered the empty wards.
With five floors and 80 beds, there was plenty of ground to cover. The resulting footage revealed an eerie time warp. An old fashioned projector and VHS tapes gathered dust in a pile, while fading posters warned of the 2012 swine flu epidemic.
Somebody with some artistic talent had drawn huge, watchful eyes on the ruined walls, while strips of photograph negatives giving ghostly images of former staff lay jumbled among medical documents.
The explorers even came across a noose on the ground, as well as a gruesome blood coloured substance in a bathroom.
Josh told UNILAD:
The voices sounded close yet I couldn’t make them out. It seemed real to me ..
He added:
I’m usually whatever about ghosts when exploring but I could not explain this one. I thought kids were really inside the building.
Josh also informed UNILAD how the ‘scariest part was going in any dark room after hearing those voices.’ I’ll bet…
Venturing into the staff area, the boys find old sewing machines and a darkened storage facility coated with foul smelling black mould.
A grubby kitchen still contained cutlery lined up on the countertop as if people could return at any time.
At one point in the footage, the team discussed their – extremely understandable – relief at not being on their own in such a strange and shadowy place.
Wandering past an abandoned wheelchair in a litter strewn corridor, they came across an x-ray appearing to show cracked ribs, before stumbling across ultrasound cameras.
They continued to the operating theatre where they marvelled over breathing equipment and noticed an uncomfortably strong smell.
Disturbingly, they came across another noose, this time hanging from the ceiling. They are then spooked by an old dummy, which resembled a human form at first glance.
As they continued through the wards, they noticed dots of long-dried blood on the old hospital beds as well as scalpels, scissors and a very creepy dummy head.
As the boys make their exit, they noticed somebody guarding the entrance to the ruined hospital.
Whether this was an official security guard or somebody paying their own solitary visit they were not too sure.
They were unable to locate the source of the children’s voices, but I imagine they won’t be forgetting the sound – or this location – for a long time.
Watch the full footage for yourself here.
If you have a story you want to tell send it to UNILAD via stories@unilad.co.uk
Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.