Warm fronts to Y-fronts: Chinese city hit by underwear storm

[Still Waters]

It was the talk of the town. After the authorities sought to break a long-running heatwave in Chongqing by using cloud-seeding missiles to artificially bring rain, the Chinese megacity was blasted by an unusual weather event – an underwear storm.

Termed “the 9/2 Chongqing underwear crisis”, an unexpected windstorm on Monday brought gusts of up to 76mph (122km/h), scattering people’s laundry from balconies on the city’s high-rises. Douyin, China’s sister app to TikTok, was filled with videos of pants and bras flying through the skies, landing in the street and snagging on trees.

Tens of thousands of comments were posted to Weibo, where more than 7 million people viewed the “underwear crisis” hashtag, which became Wednesday’s 11th most popular across China. Another 18 million engaged with a hashtag suggesting “if you think you messed up at work, just think of the Chongqing Meteorological Bureau”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/sep/09/chinese-city-underwear-storm-chongqing-heatwave-cloud-seeding