Chinese police apprehend man whose sit-ups atop power pole caused outage
- Power company cuts electricity after man is seen doing stomach crunches on top of pole in Chengdu
- Newspaper publishes video on Weibo as the incident causes stir on social media
“The local power company initiated an emergency power cut … affecting tens of thousands of households,” People’s Daily said.
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Emergency services including medical personnel rushed to the scene, according to Thepaper.cn.
It was not clear why the man decided to do sit-ups off the pole but state media warned against anyone copying him. “The man’s behaviour is too dangerous!” said one outlet.
The incident was a hot topic on Chinese social media, with at least 1.7 million views of one hashtag relating to it.
“I was annoyed because no electricity … and when I see the news and know the reason, I feel annoyed and amused at the same time,” according to one Weibo user affected by the bizarre incident.
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Another on Weibo did not find it so funny. “Blackouts can waste a lot of money and potentially lead to a fatal accident,” they said.
Local police were unavailable for comment.