Heartwarming tale of customers fulfilling their legal responsibility

WHEN A MAGNITUDE 7 EARTHQUAKE hit Jiuzhaigou county in Southwest China's Sichuan province on Aug 8, Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, also felt the quake. In one of shopping malls in the city, many customers who were eating fled without paying for their meals, thinking an earthquake was hitting the city. Yet the next day many of them returned to pay. Thepaper.cn comments:

When an earthquake happens, it is natural for people to try and find somewhere safe. Those who failed to pay for their meals should not be blamed for that reason. Some reports say that the restaurants lost about 60,000 yuan ($9,012) in total, but that's nothing compared to losing lives if the earthquake had really struck the city.

Actually, the restaurants also showed tolerance of the deeds of the customers. In a later report, a restaurant owner is reported to have said that "he fully understood the customers" rushing away without paying.