Meanwhile around the globe.Fears that the end of the world is nigh have spread across the world with only days until the end of the Mayan calendar, with doomsday-mongers predicting a cataclysmic end to the history of Earth. Ahead of December 21, which marks the conclusion of the 5,125-year "Long Count" Mayan calendar, panic buying of candles and essentials has been reported in China and Russia, along with an explosion in sales of survival shelters in America. In France believers were preparing to converge on a mountain where they believe aliens will rescue them.
The precise manner of Armageddon remains vague, ranging from a catastrophic celestial collision between Earth and the mythical planet Nibiru, also known as Planet X, a disastrous crash with a comet, or the annihilation of civilisation by a giant solar storm.
In America Ron Hubbard, a manufacturer of hi-tech underground survival shelters, has seen his business explode. "We've gone from one a month to one a day," he said. "I don't have an opinion on the Mayan calendar but, when astrophysicists come to me, buy my shelters and tell me to be prepared for solar flares, radiation, EMPs (electromagnetic pulses) ... I'm going underground on the 19th and coming out on the 23rd. It's just in case anybody's right."
In the French Pyrenees the mayor of Bugarach, population 179, has attempted to prevent pandemonium by banning UFO watchers and light aircraft from the flat topped mount Pic de Bugarach.
Mayans themselves reject any notion that the world will end. Pedro Celestino Yac Noj, a Mayan sage, burned seeds and fruits to mark the end of the old calender at a ceremony in Cuba. He said: "The 21st is for giving thanks and gratitude and the 22nd welcomes the new cycle, a new dawn."
Although it may not yet have taken root in Britain's Acacia Avenues, the idea of an approaching cataclysm is troubling folk from Moscow to France, and the US to Brazil. The New York Times has reported that some spooked Russians have been panic-buying matches, fuel and sugar to prepare for the post-apocalypse. And they are not alone. A poll by Ipsos recently found that one in seven people believe the world will end during their lifetime (or, presumably, just after it). The same poll suggests that one in 10 people have experienced fear and/or anxiety about the eschatological implications of Friday week.
The head of a chain of hardware stores in Chita, Siberia, told reporters that demand had trebled the prices of candles. Russian residents have been buying up cereals, tinned meat and boxes of matches in anticipation of the pending apocalypse.
"Candles are selling by the hundreds, with buyers constantly coming to the market. Many stores have run out," said Huang Zhaoli, a shopper at the Neijing Wholesale Market, to the West China City Daily newspaper. Mr Li, the owner of the Guangfa grocery store in Chengdu, added: "Lots of people have been buying candles recently. At first, we had no idea why. But then we heard someone muttering about the continuous darkness". The source of the panic was traced to a post on Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter, predicting that there will be three days of darkness when the apocalypse arrives.
Doomsday French mountain to be closed 'on day the world ends'A mountain in the French Pyrenees that doomsday cultists claim will be the only place still standing after the end of the world, slated December 21, is to be closed to visitors to avoid pandemonium on its peak. New Agers and UFO watchers will be barred access to the flat-top mount outside Bugarach, population 179, during a four-day period around the date they are convinced represents Armageddon. Harbingers of doom base their apocalyptic prediction on an ancient Mayan calendar predicting the end of the world will happen on the night of December 21, 2012. They believe the Pic de Bugarach is an "alien garage" and that extraterrestrials are quietly waiting in a massive cavity beneath the rock for the world to end, at which point they will leave, taking, it is hoped, a lucky few humans with them. To avoid a sudden, massive influx of esoteric outsiders, the mayor has banned gatherings of any sort, and anyone landing in a light aircraft will be arrested.
The end is not near. At least that's according to a German expert who says his decoding of a Mayan tablet with a reference to a 2012 date denotes a transition to a new era and not a possible end of the world as others have read it. He said the inscription describes the return of mysterious Mayan god Bolon Yokte at the end of a 13th period of 400 years, known as Baktuns, on the equivalent of Dec. 21, 2012. Mayans considered 13 a sacred number. There's nothing apocalyptic in the date, he said.
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