TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Before China's Chengdu announced a four-day COVID-19 lockdown for its 21 million inhabitants, residents swarmed supermarkets to buy food as if the end of the world was imminent, reports said Friday (Sept. 2).

On her Twitter feed, Dutch sinologist Manya Koetse posted pictures of residents rushing around shops, picking up slabs of meat as soon as the butcher could finish cutting it, or damaging frozen-food compartment windows in their haste to take products out.

Drivers filled their cars with vegetables, pork and chickens, even fastening dead animals to the roofs of their vehicles, Radio Taiwan International (RTI) reported.

While the government of the city in Sichuan Province only announced the lockdown on Thursday (Sept. 1), a netizen who had predicted the move was three days later detained by police for 15 days for causing the rush on supermarkets by residents.

According to Koetse, people in Chengdu were aware of food shortages caused by lockdowns in Shanghai, so they wanted to avoid getting stuck at home without anything to eat or drink.

Netizens overseas commented that the Chinese public apparently feared food shortages more than the pandemic itself, while others wondered how many refrigerators residents had at home, and about the likelihood of power blackouts.