/ 19 December 2004

Laundry day in Indonesia

More than 2 000 Indonesian women washed their laundry together at a city square on Sunday to post a record and donate the clothes to orphanages, a news report said.

At least 2 013 housewives took part in the open-air event in downtown Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city and capital of East Java province, the Detikcom online news service reported.

The women, all wearing red-and-yellow uniforms provided by the organisers — a local television station and a detergent producer — washed used clothes in buckets they had each brought with them.

The laundry was then left out to dry on clotheslines installed at the venue. The washed clothes will be donated to orphanages in the city, the report said.

Representatives from the Muri museum in Semarang, Central Java, which overseas such Indonesian feats, witnessed the event and pronounced that a record had been set. — Sapa-AFP