Mice chewed 7,200 yuan in family savings

A MIGRANT worker was shocked to find mice had chewed 7,200 yuan (us$1,157) in banknotes into thousands of tiny pieces after his wife stored them in a closet at his suburban Shanghai home.

A local bank official said yesterday that they could help the migrant worker exchange the money only if he could put the tiny pieces together.

The worker, Zhao Zhiyong, who lives in Jinshan District, said his wife stored the money in a coat pocket in a closet but they later found almost all the 100-yuan banknotes were in small pieces.

Some of the money was a friend's loan repayment, while the rest was additional savings. Zhao has worked in Shanghai for more than 10 years.

"We planned to use part of the money to pay for our child's studies at school and give the rest to our elderly parents," Zhao said.

He visited several local banks trying to exchange the remains of the banknotes, but was told they could not help with the money in such a seriously damaged condition.

An official with Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank said yesterday that the bank is waiting for the worker to assemble the pieces so they can exchange the money.

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