A furniture shop in the southerwestern Chinese city held their event at a local park and invited families to celebrate. The shop had hoped that the butterflies, which would be released from ornamental boxes, would fly away with dozens of kids chasing after them in a joyous occasion.
Instead, the butterflies – which had been flown in from China’s Yunnan Province – could barely muster up the energy to fly away. Instead, almost all of them eventually fell on a stage that was setup for the event.
Chinese media reported that the kids ended up stampeding the stage, stomping on the butterflies as their parents looked on. Event organisers would later apologise for the unfortunate incident.
A foreign newspaper, later recanting the story, said that the butterflies did not fly because they were in a much chillier foreign climate and did not have the strength to fly away.