A cleaning lorry was seen spraying water on flooded streets due to previous heavy rain and interrupted moving traffic in the process.

The bizarre clean-up operation was captured from a tall building overlooking a busy intersection in Fuzhou, in south-eastern China's Fujian Province.

In the video, the lorry is seen slowly travelling across the middle of the intersection and spraying the road with water.

Its operation seems to slow numerous motorists down who are also struggling to steer past the heavily flooded section.

The person who filmed the video said they were baffled as to why the lorry sprayed the already waterlogged road.

The local sanitation department later responded saying the road was being sprayed in order to wash away silt and garbage to the side.

The company opted for using the lorry rather than making workers manually clean up because they deemed it easier and safer that way.

The company added that if they wait for the flooded surface to dry out, they will end up needing to use more water to effectively remove the silt.

Fujian Province was faced with severe rainfall and flooding after Typhoon Haikui made landfall early on September 5.

The storm interrupted schools, roads and communication lines. More than 36,000 people were evacuated from their homes as remnants of the typhoon caused nearly 10,360 acres of farmland to be flooded, causing losses estimated at about CNY 552 million (GBP 60 million). The typhoon later lost strength and got downgraded to a tropical storm.