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Salt sold out as panic buyers store it as radiation cure
By Jia Feishang |
March 17, 2011, Thursday
|
Online Edition
Online Edition
JAPAN'S nuclear crisis continued to cast shadow on Chinese people today as many of them fearful of radiation rushed to buy salt and the country's supermarkets put up sold-out notices one after another.
The panic buying first started in Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces yesterday evening, then spread to Shanghai and other provinces such as Liaoning, Qinghai and even Hainan.
The price of a 500gm pack of salt has hiked up to 10 yuan at some markets in Guangdong, compared with about 2 yuan just a day ago.
The craze is fueled by the misconception that iodized salt could offset radioactive pollution. Some people believed Japan's radiation leaks would contaminate seawater and affect salt quality later, so they wanted to store some.
But both government departments and radiation experts said the crisis so far had no influence on China and its coastal waters, besides iodized salt is not effective to prevent radiation. In some extreme cases, people even get sick or die from taking too much salt.
The panic buying first started in Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces yesterday evening, then spread to Shanghai and other provinces such as Liaoning, Qinghai and even Hainan.
The price of a 500gm pack of salt has hiked up to 10 yuan at some markets in Guangdong, compared with about 2 yuan just a day ago.
The craze is fueled by the misconception that iodized salt could offset radioactive pollution. Some people believed Japan's radiation leaks would contaminate seawater and affect salt quality later, so they wanted to store some.
But both government departments and radiation experts said the crisis so far had no influence on China and its coastal waters, besides iodized salt is not effective to prevent radiation. In some extreme cases, people even get sick or die from taking too much salt.
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