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.
“I just went out and it suddenly started to rain heavily and underwear fell from the sky,” one resident, Ethele, posted on the social media platform Weibo.
“Who’s going to compensate me for my emotional damage?” joked one person who lost their brand new Calvin Klein set.
Another countered: “It’s actually quite romantic. You might even pick up your crush’s underwear while taking a walk on the street.”
One man bereft of his underwear said he was “laughing like crazy” but the rain storm in Chongqing had now turned him into a “lifelong introvert”.
Now it's CCP weather engineering... anything but accepting climate change
Using cloud seeding missiles isn't weather engineering?
Though the windstorm could have been coincidental to the cloud seeding. I assumed they were connected and climate change amplified the effect.