A reservoir in Sha Tin has resumed operations, Hong Kong’s Water Supplies Department (WSD) said on Wednesday, after a car was found submerged in the reservoir over the weekend.

The Kowloon Reservoir resumed operations on Thursday, the department said in a statement on the Facebook page for its mascot, Water Save Dave.

An aerial view of Kowloon Reservoir. Photo: Water Supplies Department.
An aerial view of Kowloon Reservoir. Photo: Water Supplies Department.

A government-hired contractor had removed an abandoned vehicle from the reservoir, located in Kam Shan Country Park, and had completed cleaning works, the statement said.

“Over the past few days, the [Water Supplies] Department has also conducted water sample tests for oil and grease, toxicity and pollutants in the vicinity of the Reservoir, and the results showed that the water quality of the Reservoir was satisfactory,” the statement read in Chinese.

See also: Tens of thousands without water in Tung Chung as workers race overnight to fix burst pipe

Police officers and firefighters were deployed to the scene on Saturday evening after receiving a report about the vehicle. No one was found inside the car, police said.

Citing sources, local media later reported that the vehicle was linked to the body of a 30-year-old man found floating in the reservoir in July 2023. Police at the time did not consider the case suspicious.

On Sunday, the WSD told local media that the water supply from the reservoir had been suspended and would only be resumed once they completed comprehensive and rigorous quality checks of the water quality.

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James Lee is a reporter at Hong Kong Free Press with an interest in culture and social issues. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in Journalism from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he witnessed the institution’s transformation over the course of the 2019 extradition bill protests and after the passing of the Beijing-imposed security law.

Since joining HKFP in 2023, he has covered local politics, the city’s housing crisis, as well as landmark court cases including the 47 democrats national security trial. He was previously a reporter at The Standard where he interviewed pro-establishment heavyweights and extensively covered the Covid-19 pandemic and Hong Kong’s political overhauls under the national security law.