The global epicenter of the coronavirus, the city of Wuhan in China, relaxed its 76-day lockdown on Wednesday.

The day the lockdown ended, local couples flooded a local marriage-application app, causing it to crash.

The app's maker said it had seen a 300% increase in traffic.

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Wuhan, the Chinese city at the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, lifted its lockdown on Wednesday and couples living there rushed to take advantage.


A local marriage application system run by Chinese tech platform Alipay saw a 300% increase in traffic, according to an official post on China's microblogging site Weibo , causing a temporary logjam.Alipay also announced in its post that it offers a service to couples to search and see what baby names have already been used by other couples. Alipay is one of the most widely-used payment platforms in China, alongside WeChat.

According to Chinese tech publication Abacus, marriage applications from Wuhan were suspended through February and March while the city's 11 million residents were subject to its 76-day lockdown.


During the lockdown local transport was shut down, and residents could only leave their homes to perform essential tasks like fetching food if they had special permission granted via a mandatory smartphone app, stating they were healthy and had not come into contact with anyone who had the virus.

The lockdown was officially relaxed just after midnight on Wednesday, but officials warned residents not to get too carried away.

"This day that people have long been looking forward to and it is right to be excited. However, this day does not mark the final victory," the Communist Party's flagship People's Daily wrote in an editorial.

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