More than 100 people were evacuated from a 35-storey Hong Kong housing block on Tuesday after two residents in different apartments tested positive for the new coronavirus.
Residents were removed from the building after an unsealed pipe was found in the bathroom of one of the patients.
During the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), the virus was found to have spread through faulty drainage pipes.
Officials said Tuesday’s relocation of residents in Tsing Yi district was a precautionary measure after a 62-year-old woman on the third floor was found to have the virus.
She lived 10 floors below another man who is also a carrier. “We are not sure what was the exact route of transmission,” Wong Ka-hing, from the Centre for Health Protection, told reporters.
“It could still be through the usual method of droplets or contact.”
