Partial evacuation ordered at Jordan housing block

Authorities ordered all residents living in flats C at Kensington Plaza in Jordan on Friday evening to evacuate amid a Covid-19 outbreak in the building.

The Department of Health said the residents will be taken to quarantine centres, while those with symptoms will be sent to hospital.

Health officials said at least 10 people from five different units – four of them facing the same direction – have been infected with the virus.

Leading microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung, who inspected the building with other government officials on Friday, said there’s a chance that the virus is being transmitted through leaking sewage pipes.

Another possible mode of transmission, he said, would be the so-called “chimney effect,” whereby air containing the coronavirus is sucked up to the roof and blown into flats on higher floors, causing environmental contamination.

Yuen said officials will carefully inspect the sewage facilities in the building once the residents have moved out, to ascertain the mode of transmission.

He added that he doesn’t see a need to evacuate residents of other flats in the building for the time being.

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Last updated: 2021-01-22 HKT 21:17