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Video shows Chinese tourist bury dirty diaper on Boracay beach, forcing closure

Part of Boracay beach shut down after Chinese tourist buries soiled baby diaper in white sand

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(Screenshots from Facebook video)

(Screenshots from Facebook video)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Video surfaced on Tuesday (Aug. 13) showing a Chinese tourist burying a soiled baby diaper in the white sand of a beach on the Philippine resort island of Boracay, forcing a 72-hour closure of a section of the beach to allow for cleanup.

In the video, which was first uploaded to Twitter, one Chinese woman in black can be seen aiding a female toddler in relieving herself in shallow water. Then the camera quickly pans to another Chinese woman in pink, who is taking a diaper in which the toddler had defecated and is digging a shallow grave for it in the beach's white sand.

The video quickly went viral on Twitter, gaining 20,000 retweets and 29,000 likes, while a Facebook version garnered 41,000 views, 585 likes, and 202 comments. In response to the video, Philippine Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said, "we feel insulted with such discourtesy done in the beautiful island this administration recently rehabilitated with intense and collective efforts employed by various departments and agencies of the government," reported Inquirer.net.

A 100-meter square area was cordoned off from tourists by the Environment and Natural Resources Department to make way for a 72-hour cleanup. Natividad Bernardino, General Manager of the Boracay Inter-Agency Rehabilitation Management Group, told ABS-CBN News that people would be temporarily restricted from swimming in the area while "we conduct a clean-up operation and locate where the diaper was buried. We are now digging in the area."

A local ordinance on Boracay forbids littering and defecating on the beach, with the fine for a first offense being 2,500 Philippine pesos (US$47). Philippine authorities are searching for the whereabouts of the offending tourists and said that foreigners and Filipinos alike would be arrested and face fines for breaking the law.

Philippine Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat told ABS-CBN that "The positive thing to come out of this is that Filipinos are conscious to maintain the cleanliness of Boracay Island. Boracay had been closed off to visitors for six months last year to undertake a massive cleanup operation on the island.

Facebook version of the video:

Twitter version of the video: