Coronavirus: desperate scenes as 10,000 queue for masks at Hong Kong industrial estate
- Huge crowds camp overnight in Kowloon for surgical masks after company promises thousands of boxes, as supplies dwindle across city
- MTR announces station closures following partial border shutdown by Hong Kong government
Thousands of Hongkongers camped out overnight in the cold after a company said it would release 6,000 boxes of surgical masks for sale during citywide shortages caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
Luck Well International Holdings in Kowloon Bay urged people to stop joining the queue at 1.30am on Wednesday but within hours the desperate crowd had swollen to 10,000.
The company said it expected to sell its entire stock of 11,000 boxes, each containing 50 masks on Wednesday, after abandoning its plan to release them over two days.
“Please stop braving the cold weather and [stop] queuing up … Please take care!” read a Facebook post from the firm in the early hours of Wednesday.
Hong Kong has been hit with shortages of the masks and other hygiene products with the growing number of infections in the city.
Three people were diagnosed with the virus on Tuesday night in Hong Kong, bringing the city’s total to 18. The new patients had not travelled to mainland China in the 14 days before falling ill.
