After last year’s Christmas Eve cash dash comes a Thanksgiving… gem dash? At around 8pm yesterday evening, dozens of Hongkongers and tourists were seen scavenging for what appeared to be tiny sparkly grains next to a rubbish bin on Tsim Sha Tsui’s Nathan Road.
Witnesses told Oriental Daily that they had heard somebody shout “Diamonds!” as they were walking along the busy road, and multiple passersby immediately dropped to the ground and started scrambling in a frenzy. And now we know how to get a large group of people to suddenly stop, drop and roll.
While we were originally baffled as to why people were crouching on the ground and hunting for tiny diamonds, reports have emerged saying the gems had actually rained down from above (it’s raining gems, hallelujah).
Eventually, police officers arrived on the scene to search for more “diamonds” in an open grate. They retrieved a few crystals, which one officer suspected to be amphibole, a dark coloured mineral that forms needlelike crystals. The crystals were taken to the police station for testing to confirm whether they are authentic diamonds.
In the meantime, police have appealed to those who successfully retrieved some of the gems to hand them in to the police station. People who have any information on the origin of the crystals, or who witnessed the incident, should also call (+852) 2731 7200.
Photo: Oriental Daily/(for illustration)Wikimedia Commons
UPDATE: Local jewellery stores have since inspected the gems and stated that they are in fact cubic zirconia, an artificial “diamond” commonly used in high street jewellery (worth less than HKD10 apiece).
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