Snow in Malaysia? Viral highway fun dampened by soapy truth

A “wintry wonderland” on a highway in tropical Malaysia left motorists awestruck – until a police revelation melted away the viral moment and turned it into a road safety warning.

Social media videos showed thick white foam carpeting several lanes of the Shah Alam Expressway as vehicles drove through the “snowy” route.

The spectacle was extremely unusual in Malaysia, where there is no traditional winter season and temperatures remain relatively uniform throughout the year.

However, that did not stop Malaysians from proposing their own theories, such as one social media user who likened it to a scene from “a Korean movie, but there’s a Saga”, referring to the Proton Saga, one of Malaysia’s best-known locally made cars.

Others suspected the road smelled of popular fabric-softener brands like Downy or Softlan, with a commenter asking: “Who’s washing clothes by the highway?”

As the online sleuthing continued over the white-topped road, Shah Alam district police chief Assistant Commissioner Sarudin Samah attributed the incident to soap residue, believed to have spilled from a lorry on August 24, near the Kota Kemuning interchange.

Sarudin said firefighters had spread sawdust over the foam but the leftover detergent came back to life when a deluge hit the area on Thursday.