Picture of the day: Chinese snap up table salt amid fear of radiation
People in southern and eastern part of China have begun scare-buying of table salt in fear of radiation brought by the nuclear crisis in Japan. In Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong Province, table salt was sold out in all supermarkets and stores of the city. Some businesses took advantage of the panic and sold salt ten times the regular price. The shortage of salt has spread to Shanghai and most coastal regions in China’s southeast.
A resident in Baiyun District of Guangzhou said that yesterday afternoon, he went to a dozen of supermarkets in the district and found none of them had any salt left. Finally, in one grocery store, he paid 10 yuan ($1.6) for one pack of salt, which normally costs 1 yuan ($0.16). News has it that in Yangchun of western part of Guangdong Province, the price of one pack of the same size was jacked up to 30 yuan ($4.8).
The panic was set off by the rumor that fallout from the nuclear power plant in Japan, knocked down by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the ensuing tsunamis, would reach China’s east coast in a few days, and iodised table salt helps prevent person’s thyroid gland from being damaged by radiation, and that sea salt would soon be contaminated by the radiation.
There is also likelihood that speculators are hoarding salt and creating the panic.
Same thing going on in Hong Kong.
http://penguinsix.com/2011/03/17/hong-kong-panic-…
[...] word spread of people rushing to buy salt and the media was flooded with stories, pictures, and articles about the “salt rush.” As a result, stores throughout China were sold out and the [...]
[...] – In China, table-salt sellers jacked the price of salt tenfold once the demand shot up due to the scare of possible radiation from [...]
Another "rumor" going around in China is that the the earthquake and tsunami were caused by secret Japanese undersea nuclear weapon testing. I think this is what happens when you give a bunch of people hi tech info sharing technology then censor the information they can share.
[...] http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2011/03/picture-of-the-day-chinese-snap-up-table-salt-amid-fear-of-rad… [...]