Police in China have arrested a man who performed a parachute stunt from the rooftop of a residential building in an apparent bid to boost his social media following.
The 23-year-old man, surnamed Ren, carried out the stunt late on 30 June in a residential building in Chengdu's Chenghua district while most residents were asleep.
Police said Ren leapt from the roof of the building at around 11pm local time, gliding dangerously close to apartment balconies, building walls and treetops before landing safely, according to local media reports.
He later uploaded a video of the jump to his Douyin account, where it quickly went viral.
The footage drew the attention of authorities, who detained Ren for endangering public safety by parachuting from the roof of his apartment building.
In a statement, the Chenghua branch of the Chengdu Public Security Bureau said the stunt was carried out to gain online attention and had seriously disrupted public order while putting others at risk, Zaobao news, Singapore-based Chinese-language news outlet, reported.
Police said Ren claimed to be a skydiving instructor but did not possess the required professional qualifications to carry out such an activity.
He has been placed under administrative detention, authorities said.
Officials also moved to remove his social media account and notified the relevant departments about the unauthorised aviation activity in a densely populated urban area.
The case comes amid growing scrutiny in China of risky online stunts carried out in pursuit of viral fame, with authorities increasingly cracking down on content creators whose actions are deemed to endanger public safety.
In June, a man was taken into custody by police after a video showed him driving on an expressway at a speed of 152km/h, a speed beyond the legal limit in China. He was allegedly using a phone to film the stunt while driving.
In a high-profile publicity stunt in 2016, Chen Xingjia, then Communist Party secretary of Badong county in central China's Hubei province, made his first parachute jump from an altitude of 3,000m to promote local tourism.
Carrying a banner bearing the county's tourism logo, Mr Chen said he undertook the jump ahead of the World Wingsuit Championship in Badong to draw attention to the area and promote it as a destination for extreme sports.
Read MoreNearly 3 million people evacuated as Typhoon Bavi batters eastern China
Half a million evacuated as Bavi heads to China after battering Japan and Taiwan
Lions drown at Chinese zoo after being locked in cages during devastating floods
How hackers linked to China and India targeted Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies
Xi orders rescue and investigation after shoe factory fire kills at least 28 in China
Death toll from China floods rises to 39 as Typhoon Bavi threatens more devastation
