Hong Kong’s heralded visitor, Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s giant rubber duck, faced a tragic demise last evening. In some sort of a giant post-apocalyptic bath scene the 16.5m duck deflated and slumped sadly like an arbitrarily knifed jumping castle. The duck was scheduled to remain in the harbour until June 9, but has now been removed. CNN revealed authorities called an ‘urgent duck crisis meeting’ earlier today, and it has not been confirmed whether the sculpture was afflicted by natural pressures or something more sinister. The duck has previously visited waterside cities the world over, and is sadly no stranger to hateful violence, having been repeatedly stabbed 42 times by a vandal during its stay in Amsterdam. The official statement provided by the Hong Kong Harbour Twitter account confirms that rest assured, the duck will be back.

The Rubber Duck needs to freshen up. Stay tuned for its return. twitter.com/hkharbourcity/…

— Harbour City (@hkharbourcity) May 14, 2013

Lorna Stewart-Thornton