The astonishing video shows a furious gorilla grabbing pieces of turf from the ground within its enclosure and hurling them at shocked zoo visitors.

Smartphone footage captured in Nanning Zoo, in southern China’s autonomous region of Guangxi, depicted the frustrated gorilla named Diunaxing digging up the clumps of dirt on 17th March.

In the next scene, the animal can be seen gaining momentum before forcefully launching the torn-up turf towards the visitors, successfully striking one man in the head.

The visitor, who was filming Diunaxing at the time, then gently patted the dirt off his head and shirt, as the rest of the crowd erupted into laughter.

He later told Chinese media: ” I saw it throw [turf at visitors] seven or eight times in half an hour.”

The clip went viral after it was shared on China’s version of TikTok, Douyin, later that day. It left social media users unable to refrain from commenting.

Douyin user ‘George’ said: “I’ve seen this cr*p before, throwing stones almost hitting people. And the tourists are still so excited [facepalm].

“Who knows, someone unlucky might end up getting hit and bleeding from the head.”

Then user ‘Succulent Me’ commented: “It’s the cornerstone of Nanning Zoo. Nanning Zoo now relies entirely on it to attract visitors [facepalm].”

And ‘A big fish’ added. “If there was no electricity [on the fence] the gorilla would jump out and slap a tourist to death.”

The recording has fetched more than 12,000 likes and over 6,000 shares as of 19th March.