The mystery surrounding “Jumbo”, Hong Kong’s famous and luxurious floating restaurant that didn’t resist the pandemic, continues to mount, after the owner caused a big fuss this Friday about whether the ship actually sank when it was being towed last week, as announced.
On Monday (20th), Aberdeen Restaurant Entreprises, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based investment firm Melco International Development, reported that the 76-meter-long former restaurant had sunk a day earlier near the Paracel Islands, after to face “adverse (weather) conditions”.
“The water depth at the site is around 1,000 meters, making rescue work extremely difficult,” the company said.
On Thursday, Hong Kong’s Ministry of the Sea said it had learned of the incident from the media and had requested a report from the company.
In the document, the company states that the restaurant has turned, but that “at the moment, the Jumbo and the tugboat are still in the waters, off the coast of the Xisha Islands”, the Chinese name for the Paracel Islands.
Hours later, a spokesman for the restaurant got in touch with an AFP journalist and said that the company always used the word “turned over” and not “wrecked”.
When asked if the boat had sunk, he replied again that the statement said “capped”, but did not explain why the text mentioned that the depth of the water made rescue difficult.
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