AHSA — Photos and videos taken by employees at one of Ahsa’s biggest food centers led the Municipality of Ahsa to shut it down and confiscate tons of food supplies including large amounts of rice.



Saudi and Asian workers shot the footage inside one of the big hypermarkets while hunting mice in large numbers. The scenes show mice infestation being taken out of rice bags and collected into cans while the workers laugh at this hideous situation.



The municipality took the decision to close the hypermarket and get rid of 2.5 ton of food supplies. It also confiscated 1.5 ton of rice and other perishable items that were in the storage unit. 



The municipality also formed a special committee to follow up on the incident and identify the reasons that led to these large number of rodents seen in the videos.



The committee discovered that the main maintenance and sewage pipes that cover the storage floor haven’t been checked or sprayed by pesticides. These pipes also had lots of holes where it was easy for rodents to get in and out from which led to their numbers growing so fast.



The municipality checked other branches of the same storage unit to double check on the safety of merchandise in them and that no mice infestation were there either.



The municipality also informed the center that another round of investigation would take place to make sure that hygiene is restored in the storage unit. Lack of supervision was blamed as another reason why such a problem occurred.



Ghassan Al-Sadoon, head of the municipality, said, “Through the video, we were able to identity the storage property. We sent a team to investigate right away and found large number of mice. They were coming from sewage pipes and due to lack of maintenance and hygiene.”



The storage company confirmed that the video has been traced and an official investigation is taking place with the workers. “We do not approve of such negligence from our workers. We are doing everything we could to restore order in the storage,” said the company.