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Questions have been raised after Hong Kong’s iconic Jumbo Floating Restaurant capsized within the South China Sea because it was being towed away from the harbour the place it had operated for nearly 50 years.
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The distinctive three-storey vessel was being moved to an undisclosed shipyard by its mum or dad firm, Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises. It had deliberate to hold out upkeep work at a “lower-cost web site”, in keeping with Sky Information.
Nonetheless, “hostile circumstances” close to the Paracel Islands (also referred to as the Xisha Islands) triggered the restaurant’s most important boat to capsize on Saturday after which sink the next day. No crew accidents have been reported.
A assertion from Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises defined that it might be tough to hold out “salvage works” as Jumbo had sunk in waters greater than 1,000 metres deep. The assertion added that the corporate was in search of extra info from the towing firm – which it didn’t title – to establish what occurred.
Stefan Irvine/LightRocket through Getty Pictures
‘Symbolised a extra optimistic time’
The restaurant, which was designed to appear like a glitzy Chinese language imperial palace, was opened in 1976 by Stanley Ho Hung-sun, a on line casino magnate in Macau.
Over time, Jumbo and its sister restaurant, the floating Tai Pak (which is now closed), served greater than 30 million prospects, in keeping with the Monetary Occasions. One customer was Queen Elizabeth II within the Nineteen Seventies, when Hong Kong was nonetheless a British colony.
For many individuals, the vessel – which featured in Jackie Chan’s 1985 film The Protector and 2011’s Contagion, which starred Gwyneth Paltrow – “symbolised a interval of native historical past extra optimistic than the current”, stated The New York Occasions.
Restaurant in monetary problem
The just about 80-metre seafood restaurant had closed till additional discover and laid off all workers in 2020, firstly of the Covid-19 pandemic. Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises stated Jumbo had grow to be “a monetary burden to its shareholders, with hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong {dollars} spent on its inspection and upkeep though it was not in operation”, reported The Guardian.
For the reason that emergence of Covid-19 in Hong Kong, the restaurant had a “web lack of HK$100m (£10m)”, added the paper. Even earlier than the pandemic, the restaurant had grow to be “much less common”, stated CNN, “and had been struggling a deficit since 2013”.
An absence of upkeep triggered a 30-metre kitchen barge related to the restaurant to sink on 1 June, “triggering calls from a gaggle of lawmakers for the federal government to do extra to assist the struggling enterprise”, the South China Morning Publish reported on the time.
FridayEveryday, a tradition weblog written by a gaggle of Hong Kong residents, stated the sinking of the kitchen barge “gave the impression to be a warning message from destiny that the boats have been getting previous and have been in want of upkeep”.
Regardless of numerous calls to protect the floating venue as a part of the town’s heritage, Hong Kong’s authorities didn’t present any public funds to assist reserve it.
‘All related approvals’ obtained
Rumours surrounding Sunday’s sinking have recommended that the incident “may not have been unintentional”, in keeping with The Occasions.
The paper reviews that Lo Kin-hei, a politician who had lobbied the federal government to avoid wasting Jumbo, has urged the corporate to “launch extra particulars” about what occurred, to place such rumours to mattress.
The house owners have stated that marine engineers have been “employed to examine the floating restaurant earlier than the journey, and ‘all related approvals’ had been obtained”, stated the BBC.
The New York Occasions reported that Stephen Ng, a spokesperson for Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises, “declined to touch upon hypothesis on-line that the boat might need been scuttled for insurance coverage functions”.
However the paper added that “there was no quick proof to counsel foul play”.
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