A photograph, clicked by Reuters in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, of a chicken in front of a huge pile of banknotes needed to buy it, went viral last week. It cost 14 million bolivars, but as BBC reported, the price has gone up several times since then. Last Friday, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro announced a single exchange rate pegged to his socialist government's petro cryptocurrency, devaluing the bolivar by 96% in a move economists said would fan hyperinflation.

The International Monetary Fund predicts that prices will soar by an almost inconceivable 10,00,000% in Venezuela this year. People are hungry and thousands have had to flee in search of better opportunities. Pictures show 1 kg of carrots next to 3,000,000 bolivars, its price and the equivalent of $ 0.46, at a Caracas market; and customers waiting outside a bank to get new notes at Maracaibo. The new currency has five fewer zeros in a bid to tame soaring inflation.