China bank staff solves cash jigsaw puzzle after depressed woman cuts bills into 100,000 pieces
- Mentally ill woman dies leaving behind cash-strapped widower, four children desperate for money
A bank in China has been praised for repairing banknotes that were cut into more than 100,000 pieces by a woman suffering from depression.
The task of piecing together 32,000 yuan (US$4,500) worth of banknotes took four employees more than 20 days to complete.
A woman, surnamed Zhang, brought the cash into the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in Kunming, Yunnan province, southwestern China, in June, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.
She said that, five years before, the money had been cut up by her sister-in-law who had been struggling with mental health issues and who had recently died.
Zhang’s brother is now a widower with four children living in a mountainous village in Sichuan province in the southwest of the country.
The family is impoverished and desperately needed the money.