An investigation has been launched in Maryland after a disturbing viral video depicting a young woman brutally beating two crying children surfaced on social media earlier this week.

The 23-second video shows a terrified girl cowering beneath what appears to be the lower portion of a bunk bed as a young woman furiously beats her and pulls her hair. The woman then turns her attention to a second child, a boy, whom she seemingly picks up by his neck before violently striking him.

The woman then grabs her phone and speaks directly to the camera, but yells so loudly that her words are largely unintelligible, although she clearly threatens to “beat these kids to death.”

Detectives from the Baltimore County Police Department launched an investigation on Thursday after the video surfaced on Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms. The investigation focused on a home in the Essex or Middle River areas of the county, police said.

A police spokeswoman said no charges had been filed in the case as of Friday, but said officers had picked up the woman in the video for questioning. The children in the video have been transferred to the care of the Department of Social Services, police said.

Baltimore’s Child Abuse Center has received nearly 200 emails in connection to the video, the agency’s program and policy director told The Post.

“We’ve gotten a lot of responses from both media and concerned citizens,” Drew Fidler said. “People are concerned that this happens, that it goes viral, that so many people are watching. Unfortunately, we’re living in a time when we see so much violence on social media that it’s really overwhelming. And people don’t want to be passive bystanders, they want to help and they want to make a difference.”