A Hollywood movie set and Hong Kong tourist attraction, the Jumbo floating restaurant foundered in the South China Sea shortly after leaving the port of Aberdeen, where it was moored for nearly half a century. The vessel had ceased activities due to financial difficulties.
In a statement released on Monday (20), the company Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises reported that the boat was passing on Saturday (18) by the Paracel Islands, which the Chinese call Xisha, when it encountered adverse weather conditions and began to tilt. The complete shipwreck happened this Sunday. Nobody was hurt.
Also according to the statement, quoted by the South China Morning Post, a rescue is considered “extremely difficult” because it is a region with water up to 1,000 meters deep.
The Jumbo was 76 meters long and had a capacity of 2,300 people. The establishment received distinguished visitors, including Queen Elizabeth II and American actor Tom Cruise.
The location has also played host to the filming of several films, including the thriller “Contagion”, directed by Steven Soderbergh, about a virus that kills 26 million people worldwide.
In 2020, restaurant owners cited the financial crisis caused by the pandemic as one of the reasons for closing the establishment. This year, investment firm Melco International Development announced that the Jumbo would leave Hong Kong before its license expired and that it had found a new operator abroad. The new destination, however, was not revealed.
According to the company, the restaurant had not made a profit since 2013, and the accumulated losses reached US$ 12.7 million (R$ 65.5 million). Opened in 1976 by Stanley Ho, Macau’s king of casinos who died in 2020, the Jumbo was a symbol of luxury and had a design inspired by an imperial palace. According to the South China Morning Post, the site was home to a “dragon throne” in the style of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
