Hong Kong, Jan 31 (IANS): Online orders placed by Hong Kong residents for surgical masks to protect themselves against the deadly novel coronavirus, have been cancelled, as overseas suppliers reported a lack of supply, it was reported on Friday.

The scramble for masks in Hong Kong continued despite the government revealing on Thursday that more than 32 million of them would be available for public use, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) said in the report.

On Friday, Hong Kong its 12th case of the deadly coronavirus, which has so far killed 213 people in China, the epicentre of the outbreak.

Hongkongers who tried to buy the highly sought-after masks from several websites and outlets based in the US, Japan, Korea and Thailand said their orders were cancelled.

An office worker had her January 23 order of over 90 boxes of masks for her extended family and colleagues cancelled by Japanese site Dokodemo, the SCMP report said.

In an email the following day, the website said one mask product on Chow's list of three could not be shipped, and that her whole order had been cancelled "due to issues related to payment".

By the time she visited the website again, the products were sold out and others had gone up in price.

A Hong Kong-based photographer said his order of five packs of masks through a vendor on Amazon was cancelled without notification or explanation.

Meanwhile, University of Hong Kong medical expert Ho Pak-leung estimated earlier that the city could consume 300 million masks per month during the epidemic.