Chatter of Doomsday Making Beijing Nervous

      Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Preparing for an apocalypse, Liu Qiyuan created reinforced pods that contain oxygen tanks.

By ANDREW JACOBS

Published: December 19, 2012

BEIJING - When Saturday rolls around (or not) it is self-evident whether the doomsday estimations espoused by some Christian sects and Brand new Young age fans of the Mayan end-of-world prophecy had been off the mark.
The Chinese authorities are really not prepared to wait until then.
Alarmed by spreading doubts in China which Dec. 21 will bring global apocalypse, security officials all through country have been rounding upwards members of a renegade Christian group whose employees have been aggressively advertising the idea which devastating earthquakes and tsunamis could coincide with the completion of the five,125-year Mayan In length Count calendar.
In recent days, the authorities in nine provinces have arrested nearly 1,000 devotees of the clandestine sect, the Church of Almighty God, whose adherents recently have begun supporting exterior prayer vigils and additionally handing away pamphlets which inform nonbelievers which really the only way to avoid extinction is to join their positions.
Branded the “malefic cult” by the Communist Celebration and also maligned by mainstream Christian groups for declaring that God possess returned to world since a Chinese girl, the Church of Almighty God latched onto the Mayan end-of-days legend shortly after the Hollywood disaster movie “2012” took Chinese cinemas by storm.
The motion picture, that provides China’s armed forces a starring part like the savior of mankind, had been a huge success here 3 years ago. A 3-D adaptation which launched endure month all through nation possess undoubtedly attained $twenty-two billion, a significant package workplace take in China.
It is extremely difficult, naturally, to determine just how many Chinese have been swept upwards by doomsday mania, or the less catastrophic adaptation popular in this case which portends 3 constant days of darkness, associated with a collapse of the countrys electric power grid. Shops all through country have reported stress purchasing of candle lights, along with a few entrepreneurs have produced out well peddling wellbeing kits or transportable “Noah’s Arks.”
Liu Ye, a Beijing workplace worker, stated your man had already filled upwards the cataclysm-proof bunker he integrated the mountains virtually Lhasa, in Tibet. The entry cost to his sanctuary was actually $8,000.
Yang Zhongfu, a businessman in coastal Zhejiang Province which typically will make a residing creating scarves, says he has sold 26 steel-and-fiberglass floating spheres which any single can include and also sustain because many since 9 individuals for months. He mentioned one nervous customer ordered fifteen of the motorized vessels, such as oxygen tanks, solar lumination and additionally seat belts to decrease jostling since passengers ride away a hypothetical deluge. The most expensive unit, at just $eight hundred,000, includes sacks of territory for growing vegetables.
“I told customers I think these are overreacting to this so-called doomsday thing, but I consideration their choice,” Mr. Yang stated.
The worry among safety officials that apocalypse temperature might get out of hand is not wholly unfounded. Final day, a mentally erratic man who slashed students at just a main school in the central province of Henan explained investigators which his rampage was in fact prompted by end-of-world jitters.