An iconic floating restaurant has sunk in mysterious circumstances days after being towed out to sea.
The Jumbo Kingdom boat restaurant was once the world's largest floating restaurant.
It was a must-visit tourist attraction for anyone visiting Hong Kong and a very recognisable landmark in the harbour.
The bobbing tower of cuisine was towed away by tugboats last Tuesday after nearly half a century moored in the city's southwest waters.
On Saturday the restaurant's main boat was traveling to an undisclosed shipyard when it capsized after meeting "adverse conditions" near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises Limited said in a statement Monday.
It is believed that the boat sank 1,000 metres before coming to rest, meaning that salvaging it will be "extremely difficult".
In the statement Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises said that it was "very saddened by this accident".
Fortunately no crew members were injured in the incident.
The 260-feet long (about 80 meters) restaurant was the main boat of Jumbo Kingdom.
It also included an older and smaller sister restaurant boat, a barge for seafood tanks, a kitchen boat, and eight small ferries to transport visitors from nearby piers.
To Western audiences who have not had the chance to visit Hong Kong, the boat may be recognisable from the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun.
Queen Elizabeth II, Jimmy Carter and Tom Cruise have also visited the vessel, taking in its Imperial-style façade and mass of neon lights.
Over the past decade the boat has been in decline, hastened by a fall in the fishing population in the island's southern harbour.
The Covid-19 pandemic dealt the final blow, with the restaurant closed until further notice in 2020.
The Jumbo Kingdom is not the only remarkable vessel to have met an unlikely end this week.
A massive cruise ship is likely to be sold for scrap because no one wants to buy it, it has been reported.
Some of the fixtures and engines of the Global Dream II will be sold on if a buyer can be found, German cruise-industry magazine An Bord first reported.
The 9,000 person passenger ship - which would've been one of the largest in the world - is currently sitting unfinished in a north German shipyard, Christoph Morgen, an insolvency administrator at Brinkmann & Partner, said at a press conference.
The vessel's half-finished keel will be sold for scrap, Morgen said, while its part-finished hull is for sale.
