A woman in southwest China who disrupted traffic by throwing away more than 16,000 yuan in cash at a busy pedestrian crossing later told police that did so because she was “in a bad mood”, a local newspaper reported.

Wads of mostly 100 yuan notes were strewn across the street in Chongqing but other pedestrians simply surrounded the area and watched without scrambling to collect the scattered money, according to the Chongqing Morning Post .

Police arrived quickly and collected the scattered bills, which added up to 16,369 yuan (US$2,374). The police later found the woman and returned her money. She justified her behaviour by saying that she was “in a bad mood”.

Police later told reporters that “in the afternoon, a long-haired woman, wearing a leather jacket and shorts, walked out of a pharmacy and onto the pedestrian crossing. She then stopped and took handfuls of notes from her tote bag and tossed them on the street.”