Hong Kong villagers keep memories of home lost to reservoir afloat

In 1965, the 400 residents of Sam Mun Tsai were evicted from their homes, as the remote fishing village in Tai Po made way for a pioneering engineering project - the first ever reservoir carved from the sea: Plover Cove Reservoir.

Almost five decades on, hundreds of people who can trace their history to the lost village gathered in Sam Mun Tsai New Village, on an island less then 1km from their old home. As well as celebrating the Lunar New Year, they marked the 50th anniversary of the relocation of their ancestral village a little early - the actual date is not until July.

Joining the grand reunion were about 100 people who made an even more dramatic relocation, to Britain.

Now home to 2,000 people, the village made headlines in January when outsiders flocked to see a blue luminescent glow on its coastal waters. The spectacular sight was the result of an algal bloom caused by pollution.

But few visitors know the true story behind the village - that its tough fishermen sacrificed their way of life for the modern reservoir.

"I am of the third generation in [the old] Sam Mun Tsai," says village elder Cheung Leung-chun, 93. "Both my grandfather and my father were fishermen. As a child I helped them catch fish and carried fish to the market. We were poor and never went to teahouses … I didn't go to school.