Baby's body found in building sewage pipe
More than 50 police, with two tracker dogs, were last night conducting door-to-door inquiries in a block of flats in North Point after the body of a newborn boy was found in a sewage pipe.
Crime squad officers believe the baby was flushed down a toilet in one of the flats in the 25-storey building at Provident Garden in Wharf Road.
The body was discovered at about 12.30pm after residents complained about a blocked sewage pipe and building management called in a plumber to clean the drain on the first-floor podium.
Police said the body was jammed in an L-shaped sewage pipe, and a team of firefighters was called in to help dismantle a section of the drain and extract the body.
'Initial examination revealed that the body, with its umbilical cord attached, was a newborn boy. The placenta was also found in the pipe,' a police officer said.
'We believe the body was flushed down the toilet from one of the units in the building.'
The 25-storey building has four flats on each floor.
An autopsy would be carried out this morning to find out whether the baby was stillborn or born alive, the officer said. Detectives from Eastern district crime squad are investigating the case.
Last night, police appealed to the baby's next of kin and members of the public who may have information to contact them on 2880 4266.
It is the second such case in the city in five months. On April 26, a Filipino maid, 38, was arrested after a baby's body was found in a sewage pipe at a Tseung Kwan O flat.
Ten days earlier, a 17-year-old was arrested for infanticide after her newborn son was found in a rubbish bin in a Tsuen Wan street. On April 1, another 17-year-old was arrested for infanticide when her newborn son died after she carried him in a handbag from her Tuen Mun home to a short-stay hotel in Yuen Long to meet his father.
