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Korean convenience stores selling gold bars in vending machines
By Kim Ji-woo & Kim Tae-gyu, UPI News Korea
A customer purchases a gold bar using a vending machine at a convenience store in Seoul.
Photo courtesy of GS Retail
SEOUL, June 16 (UPI) -- The popularity of gold bars is surging at convenience stores around South Korea as the value appreciates amid strong inflationary pressure across the globe.
GS Retail confirmed Friday that sales of gold bars at its convenience stores totaled $19 million in the past nine months ending in May.
The gold bars, dispensed through vending machines, were introduced last September at five of its stores. The machines offer five sizes, weighing 0.13 ounces to 1.3 ounces.
Prices fluctuate daily in keeping with the international valuation for gold, according to GS Retail, which operates more than 10,000 convenience stores all over South Korea.
The popularity of gold bars at its stores has prompted the company to increase the number of outlets carrying them 29 with plans to hit 50 by year end.
"The most popular gold bar is the smallest, the 0.13-ounce one, which is currently priced at around $225," a GS Retail representative told UPI News Korea.
"People in their 20s and 30s appear to be the main buyers, purchasing physical gold as an investment vehicle, especially in times such as these, when its value is continuing to rise," he said.
The gold price started to jump in March amid Silicon Valley Bank's collapse and with people moving to gold as a safe haven.
"Niggling inflation and the SVB crisis seem to have caused more people to be interested in anti-inflationary assets such as gold," Inha University Professor Lee Eun-hee said in a phone interview.
"But a gold bar purchased at a convenience store seems more like something done in fun rather than as a means for serious investment. I believe the popularity of these gold bars is mainly due to its easy accessibility, at convenience stores no less," she said.
How long before banks get into this?
Massive rockfall narrowly misses Swiss village
By Patrick Hilsman
Residents were evacuated in May because of safety fears. Photo by Michael Buholzer/EPA-EFE
June 16 (UPI) -- A rockfall came dangerously close to the Swiss village of Brienz/Brinzauls, which was evacuated in May because of fears for the safety of residents.
"During the night, a large part of the insel towards Brienz/Brinzauls departed. The rock masses only just missed the village: they left a meter-high deposit on the main road near the schoolhouse," the Albula/Alvra and Brienz/Brinzauls municipality tweeted Friday.
"A large part of the insel fell off in a stream of debris during the night. So far no damage has been found in the village. The behavior of the surrounding rock masses is currently being observed," the municipality said.
The village is normally home to about 100 residents and is the location of a 16th century church. Images of the aftermath indicate the rockslide stopped just shy of the St. Calixtus church.
"There is no indication of damage in the village, with the rocks mass having stopped just in front of the village," local authorities said in a statement.
"In such cases you cannot exclude the fact that blocks of rock crash into other blocks creating stone splinters from the size of a fist to a football," said local community spokesperson Christian Gartmann.
Gartmann said such debris can "shoot through the air and can penetrate window panes or other building parts."
Climate change is believed to have contributed to similar rockfalls as the snowmelt has caused certain regions of mountains to weaken.
On Monday, the peak of Fluchthorn mountain in Austria collapsed.
In a video produced by local Austrian authorities explaining the collapse, state geologist Thomas Figl said, "We can be relatively sure about the cause of this incident: permafrost. The ice is the glue of the mountains and that ice has been thawing over a long period of time due to climate change. That then causes the results we see here."
The rockslide in Brienz is thought to have been the result of natural erosion as opposed to melting permafrost.
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