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STR / AFP - Getty Images
Chinese shoppers crowd a shop in an effort to buy salt in Lanzhou, northwest China's Gansu province on Thursday.
BEIJING – China is in the midst of a salt rush.
Despite the Chinese government’s effort to educate the population and reassure them they will not be exposed to radiation from the nuclear plant in northern Japan, many fearful Chinese have come to believe baseless rumors that the iodine in salt could save them from radiation sickness – so they are hoarding iodized salt.
The frantic buying has left grocery shelves empty of salt in China’s coastal provinces, just across the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea from Japan. But the panic is spreading quickly westwards to the country’s inland where salt sales are catching up at a crazy speed.
“April Gourmet,” a chain supermarket frequented by Beijing’s expatriate community, told NBC News that its salt supply was sold out as of Thursday morning. “I’m not sure when we’ll have salt again because our suppliers’ stocks have been sold out, too and now the price is higher. Even the soy sauce is sold out by customers who worry they won’t have salt for cooking,” Ms. Zhao, a public relations manager for the store said in a phone interview.
“Merry Mart,” another big Chinese supermarket chain favored by older Beijingers, also reported that all the salt was sold out.
The spike in demand may be due to the misunderstanding of reports that note the thyroid gland is susceptible to radioactive iodine – just one of several types of radiation that could be produced by the crippled reactors – and that potassium iodide tablets can block the radioactive iodine if taken before exposure.
STRINGER SHANGHAI / Reuters
A policeman tries to maintain order as residents line up outside a salt wholesale market to buy salt after it was sold out at local supermarkets in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China on Thursday.
Salt containing iodine, however, would not shield against the radiation, medical experts say, adding that there was no reason for alarm in China, which is thousands of miles away from the damaged reactors.
On Taobao.com, China’s largest online business-to-business platform, some sellers from coastal provinces are even promoting their products by advertising, “Buy one, get one bag of salt free.” On the Sina microblog, a Twitter-like message sharing site, “salt” has become the most frequently discussed word and people from all over the country are reporting on how the panic buying has caused shortages in their hometowns.
Meantime, nuclear scientists have repeatedly explained on TV that even if a nuke explosion did take place, the level of radiation that could spread to China’s coastal cities would be diluted to a minor extent and simply taking salt would not help preventing damage.
Fang Zhouzi, a Beijing-based scientist famous for educating the public about scientific facts, wrote in his microblog that “you’d have to take 5-13 pounds of salt to have enough iodine to resist the radiation.” The Chinese government has also set-up telephone hotlines and web sites that address the public’s concerns about possible radioactivity from Japan.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's economic policy agency, has also warned consumers about price gauging and has encouraged them not to give into the fear mongering. "Don't believe rumors, don't spread rumors, and don't panic buy," said the NDRC in an emailed statement, Reuters reported.
LIU JIN / AFP - Getty Images
People get bottles of soy sauce, which contains iodine, from the supermarket after salt sold out due to panic buying in Beijing on Thursday.
Still, the Chinese government’s education efforts seem to have done very little to deter people’s determination to hoard salt. News keep pouring in about how salt is sold out everywhere, and the China Salt Industry Corp., China’s biggest state-owned salt producer, continues to promise citizens a stable market will be back soon and that therea are ample reserves.
Meantime, China announced on Wednesday that it will readjust and amend mid- and long-term development plans for nuclear power. The State Council announced that approval for all new nuclear power plants, including those in preliminary development, will be temporarily suspended until safety standards are revised and strengthened.
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Ahhhh.... Come on China!
Let go of your resentment towards Japan for past relational and political differences.
Whatcha say you help Japan by sending a Fleet of your ships filled with manpower and goods.
The salty hoarding picture "dwives me cwazie"
Don't be a Cell.Fish now.
God Bless The USA! For first response to a troubled region even though we really need the gas money to float our own boat.
you can go $%^# yourself when ur country been invaded, your ancestor been murder or rape; people been expierment on like the Jews. Tell Us to forgive them when people start to forgive Nazi. Tell you the truth, Chinese people dont give a damn of what happen to Japanese. Some of us eve believe they deserve what they got, hell. I hope Tokyo get a 9.7
Hey Wan, you'd better be careful what you wish on others. The word is "Karma" Look it up.
Grow up and deal with it.
Wangs 'n wee,
This is why we don't give a %@#^ what you think.
yo wei we have saying evil is as evil does....other words stupid is as stupid does look at the evilness your own have done and still do ...look in your own back \yard,then tell the world to#&%#@% itself
I agree with Wan...like he said when the Jews no longer vilify the Nazis (Germans) and stop bringing up the Holocaust every chance they get then maybe the Jews should 'grow up' as BJs65-634377 has stated so eloquently then maybe we can 'all get along'. Until you have suffered and perhaps been affected directly/personally by such barbarism that the Chinese suffered under the Japanese, then you have no right to tell anyone else to 'grow up' or to 'deal with it'. Perhaps you should tell that to the Jews or are you afraid of being called an anti-Semite which has been used/over-used so much as to become meaningless.....bring on the anti-semetic comments, I'm a big biy I can handle it. Also if in telling the truth I'm called an anti-semite then I will wear that badge with honour because right thinking people and not knee-jerking liberals will understand the point I am trying to make.
I agree with Anubis and Wan. Most of you probably have no concept of History unless it deals with the US. Let me tell ya the Japanese make the Nazi's look like alter boys. And then you wonder why Wan wrote what he wrote?
You people need to read a book or go wiki something to gain some enlightenment.
@Son_of_Anubis
I'm a Jew, with non Jewish family in Germany. I dated a non-Jewish German boy for a while and have even traveled to Germany, and will be going back, once again in the fall. There now you've actually met a Jewish person and can have some basis for your opinion on Jews.
My mother is fluent in German, although she was born in the USA. Jews don't hate Germans, we hate anti-semantic remarks against our religion and beliefs, and we hate what the Nazis did to our people as well as all the non-Jews who also went to concentration camps.
As a Jew whose grandfather made a perilous escape from Austria and whose family died in concentration camps in Poland, I would like to personally tell you that I don't hate or blame the German people for what happened.
I think you should grow up. Maybe you should stop with your clearly incorrect assumption on Jews, and stop blaming all the worlds problems on them. Clearly you don't want everyone to "all get along" because you don't want to get along with people overall. You're just looking for people to dislike. You go from Jews to Liberals, which means there are two groups of people you honestly think are in the wrong and dislike.
Maybe you should stop trying to verbally attack swathes of people for their opinions like "knee jerking liberals" and "jews" while simultaneously creating a divide between people, instead of trying to get along.
Maybe you should listen to both sides of a story, and have a conversation and not make baseless attacks against a unfortunate situation that happened to a group of people not even related to this disaster. I mean honestly why make an attack against Jews at all? Why not actually prove with action and words that you want to live in peace and not label everyone with the same brush stroke. Maybe you should live by your own words.
Wow. Just wow.
Well said imaJEW. I'm still shaking my head at the stupidity of certain people on this thread. With people like that running around, I can see a return to Nazism - right here in the us of a. By the way guys, they were far-RIGHT wing-nutjobs.
This is typical western abuse of free-speech media, using fraudulent ethnic identities to stir up meaningless controversy between Asian nations, since you can't do what you're doing in the Middle East/North Africa. Although China had arrested three individuals for spreading the radioactive-paranoia rumour about iodized salt, I would think the people behind the salt industry may have concocted the rumours, and they would obviously be harder to prosecute given their financial and perhaps political clout.
In any case, you whiteys and slaves-of-western "democratic" powers, please stop faking these "Asian" user-names, and allow the Eastern civilizations to develop without your stinkin' feet testing the pure waters; and besides, China is among the top supporters of the rescue and recovery effort going on in Japan right now, and they're still dealing with their own natural disaster from a major earthquake just one day prior to Japan's disastrous earthquake and tsunami.
hmmm, I guess goiter rates will go down but blood pressure will be way up.
That's for sure. Bet you'd have to consume kilograms of iodized salt just to equal the amount of iodide in one of the KI pills. Will be a lot of bloated people walking around over there.
Seriously, though, I hope their government can get the word out that ingesting a ton of salt isn't gonna be good for anyone.
It'll be good for the blood pressure medicine companies....that's for sure.
It's true that the Chinese are buying salt but not for the reasons reported here. Since the coastal China derives most of cooking salt from sea water and the fact that China "shares" the sea with Japan, the concern is that the future sea salt will be polluted by the radioactive fallout and thus the rush of buying.
I'm not sure your account is valid. What about the fish and seaweed that they consume? Chinese would be hoarding dried fish and seaweed too if they felt the Sea of Japan was going to be contaminated by radiation.
It's all silly, ignorant panic.
Surely they are smart enough to realize salt is found all over the world and can be easily imported??!
Salt is a necessity product while dried fish or seaweed has some substitutes.
rob, you're so smart that they are no match for your intelligence
This is exactly what my sister-in-law told us on the phone the other day (she's in Shanghai). I found it ridiculous and actually wondered if it might be a misconception about iodized salt but that was not the case she says. In Shanghai at least (or at least within my sister-in-laws contacts) it was definitely the fact that they assumed salt comes from the sea and might be affected. What about fish we wondered? Probably more important eh?
Without doing any research I suspect that China does not even get the majority of its salt from the sea as it is far more efficient to mine it from the vast deposits the exist from dried up seas (like the ones we have in Canada which are literally tens of meters thick and thousands of acres).
whether it makes sense or not this was the rumour my sister-in-law told us was spreading in Shanghai when we talked to her the other day on the phone
It's stories like this that make me wonder about evolution and the human animal. How people can be so ignorant is amazing. The old saying that there is nothing common about common sense is so true.
sometimes i wonder, is it a good idea to make china a democratic country in the foreseeable future with a huge population like this?
but one thing is for sure, no matter how bad the sound of censorship of internet is in china, sometimes it is the only way to keep the country stable and out of mess and trouble.
1.3bn can twist a little gossip to a crazy result. we just saw a perfect example.
Maybe we have some thing we can sell the chinese.
(At a small proft)
Just enough to clear our debt........................................................
Does China have an Ebay site ?????????????
What does a bag of salt go for in China.............................................
Dammmm. I wish the Chinese were as logical as the US when it comes to natural disasters. I mean, look at Katrina.
HAHAHA...LOL
yeah i mean look at Katrina. r u kidding me?
As a red-blooded American, these images of Chinese scrambling to buy Salt conjures up only one image. Dollars! I bet some red-blooded American is getting rich from all of this. I want a piece of it too!
As a blue-blooded walmart shopper, I hope they can steer the Chinese to stay away from joining unions, like here in the U.S.! I would really hate to see the prices of salt made in China go up! Nothing like big corporations exploiting workers for profit...cheers to walmart and their ANTI-UNION EFFORTS!
Price gauging? I assume you meant price gouging. How much salt will it take to get writers to read what they wrote before they publish it?
I agree with you, Sherrie, the editing on msn leaves a lot to be desired.....
well, as a chinese, I have to make something clear. This report is not telling the whole story. The rumor that salt could save people from radiation indeed played a role in this farce. However, most of people were rushing for salt due to the expectation of a lack of salt-bare necessity of life- in the coming future.
It may be another rumor which comes from nowhere. Since the ocean polluted by Japanese radiation is associated with chinese source area of salt and many other necessity of product, some people are worried that salt supply may be in trouble. This concern is ridiculous but it scares people, one rush to store and the other follow like sheep. The panic rush just happened.
vseteacher--I have a question, (or 2). Does your government make something as cheap as salt seem like a luxury?(I'm serious). Does the Chinese government manipulate the currency to such a level that you folks can't even buy salt? I know that your people are good, but why do you folks take that sh** from your government. We have our government well trained in fiscal management, (now that is sarcasm).
first question, no. second one, no. But China is a country with large population. lot of people don't consume like americans, actually they're cheap.
I doubt that many Chinese consume like us fools do, but salt is one of the most plentiful consumable item in the world--and very inexpensive. We're not talking about a Mercedes Benz--it's salt. Is is given as a Holiday present?.
looks like you didn't get me right. Yeah, salt is cheap all over the world including China. People's concern is not whether they can afford salt but the safety of salt in future. Of course they can buy salt overseas in case the source area is contaminated by the radiation, but they have no idea of how much it will cost. Again, there're too many people, once this big market goes that way, everything is gonna change. Because they're cheap, they don't bother to consider the effort they'll pay on rushing to stores. So that's the easiest way for them.
What the f*#%, 2012 is the only thing this planet has to look forward too. hope its quick and painless!
face reality....nothing will happen in 2012...its happening now!!
since christmas, flood in queesland australia, revolution in africa, earthquakes in new zealand, china and japan, tsunami, nuclear safety issue, debt ceiling hanging above USA, now war in libya. sigh
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well, as a chinese, I have to make something clear. This report is not telling the whole story. The rumor that salt could save people from radiation indeed played a role in this farce. However, most of people were rushing for salt due to the expectation of a lack of salt-bare necessity of life- in the coming future.
It may be another rumor which comes from nowhere. Since the ocean contaminated by Japanese radiation is associated with chinese source area of salt and many other necessity of product, some people are worried that salt supply may be in trouble. This concern is ridiculous but it scares people, one rush to store and the other follow like sheep. The panic rush just happened.
If potassium iodide tablets are unavailable, one can also take small amounts of tincture of iodine, available in most pharmacies. There are many websites that explain how much to take and for how long. What matters is getting enough (but not too much) iodide ion to saturate the thyroid for a few weeks. The accompanying anions (potassium, sodium, etc.) are unimportant from a health perspective.
In cases of incidental (minor) radioiodine exposure, too little prophylactic iodine is better than too much. But if taking some will ease their anxiety, then it is effort well-spent.
Don't confuse Iodide with Iodine. Same element but different oxidation state. Iodine is an oxidizer, progressively weaker than its sister elements Fluorine, Chlorine and Bromine but still an oxidizer strong enough to use as a topical antiseptic when diluted sufficiently. Not advisable to take internally.
And here in the USA, our people are buying up pills to prevent cancer - who'd of ever buying iodized salt would do the same, and it is a lot cheaper than the pills! I hope the USA Federal Emergency Manangement Agency (FEMA) adds this to their list of thing not to do when radiation sickness is feared!
“you’d have to take 5-13 pounds of salt to have enough iodine to resist the radiation.”
Yeah ... That aught to kill you.
I hope they also realize that ingestion of too much salt is lethal.
one guy in china already died of consuming too much salt.
shall i feel sad for the death or shall i call him stupid?
90 to 110 IQs are soooooo knee jerk. Grab up on those shrimp too!
WOW! I didn't realize how deep seated the hatred for Japan still is in China. The acts of Japan were atrocious in WWII, American and British troops were subject to the very same treatment that Wan Wei so graphically pointed out. Many of the Vets I have met in the USA that fought the Japanese in that war still harbor those same feelings. However, Japan is a very different country today than it was in 1938 and it seems to me that the Japanese have been very contrite, apologetic, and indeed suffered horribly from their actions during occupation. The World is a much smaller place now due to communication and transportation; cooperation of all peoples will be necessary to feed, shelter and govern this World. People, weather Muslim, Christian, Chinese, Russian, Iranian, Eskimo, whatever we must find some forgiveness for this World to be worth living in. Forgive, so that you may be forgiven.
pinkyceci - Don't forget that the Japanese reaped whatever they sowed on themselves....they weren't merely defending themselves when they invaded China, Burma the Philippines etc not to mention Pearl Harbour. They were the aggresors in all these and more areas. the Rape of Nanking was an orgy of bloodlust unseen for centuries, and you expect the Chinese not to harbour bitter feelings even hatred for the Japanese. Some of the people that went through that are still alive today and not for the want of trying by the Japanese. I have no problem with China not willing to help the Japanese or to forgive them.....it comes down to the sins of the fathers
Got to say pinky you're kinda ignorant if you think what the Japanese did to the Chinese only started in WW2. Even more so for the comments for being, "very contrite, apologetic, and indeed suffered horribly from their actions during occupation." For the longest time, probably still do, they taught in schools that the Chinese attacked Japan in WW2 so they faught back. And guess what Pearl Harbor? We attacked them so yet again they struck back.
Believe what ever you want about the Japanese but that fairy tale bs that you're spewing is for kids.
What could you expect? The rumors are being shared by social networking sites apparently not filtered by the government. The people in China aren't stupid they're just scared for themselves and their families. They know their government lies to them every day.
A thousand people tweet that radiation is coming and table salt will save you - do you really think they're going to believe the stoney faced government spokesperson who says everything will be fine or trust their friends and neighbors?
Son_of_Anubis
I know and understand all of what you are saying. But, it will never stop unless people, all people take a higher road and forgive, so that we all may move forward and release ourselves of the hatred. I don't for example hate white people because their fathers brought slavery into the New World, I have to move on, so my kids won't be shackled by hatred.
I can see your point. However I'm not sure if people in Japan are" contrite, apologetic", at least their government doesn't even admit what they did. They distort the text in their history book and educate their next generation that Japan is the victim of WWII. God! If they were the victims who played the invader？US？So far, their leader still held ceremonies for the war criminal every year. If Chinese people should forgive them, there gotta be a reason.
Gee, maybe would have to buy salt from the US? And this is the up and coming world power????? Good lord.
Hey China, why not buy something back from the US, so we can pay off all those loans our fearles and mindless leader has created.
we'd love to buy salt from you but i doubt your price can beat chinese salt producers hehe
Hey Hold That Thought, we no longer have a leader who is mindless... Bush is gone. Didn't you get the news there Chief?
Don't they even know that the prevailing winds will take the radiation in the opposite direction??
iServeUSAR
You may just keep on hating then, I hope the act of forgiveness isn't lost on all adults in the World though, or the kids won't have a future to listen to the BS as you labeled my plea.
I just love how the other day the Chinese told the Japanese government that they should be open about the situation. Can you imagine if this nuclear accident had happened in China?? They would be beating up the reporters who tried to get the story out....
I think they would love to pay premium your aircraft carriers with F-16s on the deck but nobody in your government would even consider it.