BEIJING, May 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Whitehall officials once feared that there would be a dramatic shortage of tea in the event of a nuclear attack on the UK in the 1950s, recently declassified documents revealed Monday as quoted by media reports.

    Officials planning food supplies said the tea situation would be "very serious" if the country were to come under attack with atomic and hydrogen bombs.

    "It would be wrong to consider that even 1oz per head per week could be ensured," they said in the top-secret documents.

    "The tea position would be very serious with a loss of 75 percent of stocks and substantial delays in imports and with no system of rationing it would be wrong to consider that even one ounce (28 grams) per head per week could be ensured," according to a memo drafted between 1954 and 1956.

    "No satisfactory solution has yet been found."

    Another paper from April 1955 said: "The advent of thermonuclear weapons... has presented us with a new and much more difficult set of food defense problems."

    Subjects down for discussion were arrangements for stockpiling food, emergency feeding and equipment, and the availability of bread, milk, meat, oils and fats and tea and sugar.

    The papers were released under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Archives at Kew, southwest London.

    (Agencies)