Hong Kong, July 15 (DPA) A Chinese medicine practitioner was Wednesday beginning a five-year jail sentence for dumping a newborn baby in a waste bin in a Hong Kong supermarket.

Tsui Chi-lam claimed he thought the prematurely-born baby was dead after a woman gave birth unexpectedly in the bathroom of his clinic in November last year.

The 67-year-old wrapped the baby girl with her umbilical cord still attached in newspapers and plastic bags and dumped her in the bin at a supermarket in the city.

But the baby, born 10 weeks prematurely, was still alive and was discovered by a supermarket worker who saw something moving inside the plastic bags and thought it was an animal.

The baby girl survived despite suffering from hypothermia, oxygen deprivation and a congenital heart defect.

Doctors said she had been born the day she was discovered after a pregnancy of about 31 weeks.