Arson victim makes large surgical mask donation

Lin Shengbin, who lost his wife and three children in an arson attack committed by the family's nanny in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province in 2017, donated 5,000 face masks for prevention and control of the novel coronavirus on Jan 28.

An inventory of donations released by the Hangzhou branch of Red Cross Society of China on Friday showed the face masks donated by Lin are valued at 90,000 yuan ($13,000).

Lin told WeVideo, the video platform of Beijing News, in a phone interview the virus outbreak is now a major concern for all Chinese people and what he did is not worth mentioning.

“Face masks are hard to get these days, and I am trying to buy some for people who really need them,” Lin said.

He is still working on collecting face masks by contacting sellers both at home and abroad.

"Hangzhou is short of masks, so I will make donations to the city where I live first," Li noted, adding he has collected another 1,000 masks and will send them to local hospitals soon.

On June 22, 2017, Lin's wife and three children were killed in a fire set by the nanny Mo Huanjing who was a gambling addict and had long been in debt.

To gain the family's trust, Mo schemed to light a fire and put it out. However, the fire was out of control, and Lin's wife and kids were killed due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

Mo was sentenced to death according to a final ruling in June 2018 and executed three months later.

Lin has been engaged in charity work ever since.

Qin Jirong contributed to this story