Residents in a Chinese city were shocked yesterday when they saw porn being broadcast on a public screen for more than five minutes.

The video was played after a screen tester connected a personal computer to the device then went away, leaving the computer on autoplay, according to People's Daily.

The incident took place on a busy street in Ningbo, a major city of nearly eight million people in eastern China's Zhejiang Province.

Cover your eyes! Explicit content was played on a big screen in Ningbo, China, yesterday

The explicit content was shown on a big screen outside a shopping mall called NingboTianlun Square at around 10am on December 28, according to the report.

Local police said the clip had been saved in the personal computer of a property management worker who was testing the screen at the time.

The worker then went away leaving his computer unattended, which led the big screen to broadcast the porn.

A muzzed video posted on Chinese social media has captured the embarrassing incident.

Pedestrians, security guards and the staff of the nearby shops were shocked to watch the video being played.

One security guard told a reporter from Qianjiang Evening News: 'The content of the video was really...I am too shy to talk about it...'

The case was reported to the local police immediately.

Pedestrians, security guards and nearby shopkeepers were shocked to watch the video

On December 28, Yinzhou police confirmed the incident in a statement on its social media account.

The worker was brought to the local police for investigation.

The worker's gender has not been specified.

The shopping mall also issued an apology for broadcasting distasteful videos on the same big screen today.

Local police said the clip had been saved in the personal computer of a property management worker who was testing the screen at the time

The incident had sparked wide discussions on Weibo, China's microblogging platform.

Web users found the incident quite funny in general.

One user said: 'Why would the staff use a personal computer at work? It was so risky.'