Iconic Floating Restaurant Is Now a Sunken Restaurant

Hong Kong's iconic Jumbo Floating Restaurant is no longer floating. The 46-year-old floating restaurant, which closed in 2020 after a massive drop in business during the pandemic, was being towed away from Hong Kong for refurbishing when it sank in the South China Sea amid rough weather conditions Sunday, the Hong Kong Free Press reports. "Despite the efforts of the towing company responsible for the trip to rescue the vessel, unfortunately it capsized," the company that owns the restaurant said.

The company said that since the Jumbo sank in waters deeper than 1,000 meters—0.62 miles—it would be "extremely difficult to carry out salvage works." The 250-foot restaurant, designed to resemble an imperial Chinese palace, was towed out of Hong Kong last Tuesday, bound for an undisclosed location. In the decades after it was opened by casino magnate Stanley Ho in 1976, it attracted more than 3 million visitors, including Queen Elizabeth II, and appeared in numerous movies, the AP reports. The company says it was thoroughly inspected by marine engineers before the towing operation began. (More Hong Kong stories.)