Chinese restaurants shut after staff caught washing dishes in puddles
- Authorities in Shandong province say they acted after videos exposing the unhygienic practices circulated on social media
- Area had been hit by heavy rainfall after Typhoon Lekima went through earlier in the week
Two restaurants have been shut down in eastern China after they were found to have used water from nearby puddles to wash dishes, according to the local authorities.
The local market supervision authority said it had acted after videos taken in Boxing county, Shandong province, exposing the safety breaches had circulated on social media.
The county encountered heavy rainfall due to typhoon Lekima earlier this week.
In one video, a man was filmed squatting beside a muddy puddle in front of a restaurant serving homestyle dishes called Haoran, washing dishes in the murky water.
In the other, a woman used a basin to fetch water from a puddle in front of a Korean barbecue restaurant called Busan Stove, then poured it into a larger blue basin placed on the ground which had dirty tableware inside.
The administration sent inspectors to look into the cases after the videos went viral on social media and confirmed they were true, according to statements posted on Weibo this week.