An ambulance with flashing sirens was photographed picking up travelers with duty-free shopping bags at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. Photo: Weibo

Shanghai Airport officials said they would seriously review the recent actions of their employees who illegally used an ambulance to pick up airport passengers, which has since sparked controversy online over public resources being used for private purposes. 

On Saturday, a short video went viral on Chinese social media depicting an ambulance with a flashing siren picking up passengers with duty-free bags at the Pudong International Airport. 

The video, which has since received 150 million hits on Weibo, sparked widespread criticism on how public resources are used.

"What if an emergency happens and an ambulance is being used for this?" netizens asked.    

Airport officials released a statement on Weibo Saturday night and said an investigation was underway. Officials confirmed the emergency vehicle belonged to the airport and had been misused by airport employees. 

In response to netizen uproar, Shanghai Medical Emergency Center said the vehicle was not a first-responder ambulance with their emergency system based on the vehicle's license plate seen in the video, thepaper.cn reported. 

Shanghai's 120 emergency ambulances are labeled accordingly and have a white body and blue border with "Star of Life First Aid" and "120" on each vehicle and are different from airport ambulances. 

Zhu Qinzhong, director of Shanghai's Medical Emergency Center, released a statement on the center's website and WeChat public account that said the fleet of Shanghai's 120 ambulances could be accounted for and seen by the public.