Aerial photo taken on June 6, 2021 shows wild Asian elephants in Jinning District of Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province. A herd of wild Asian elephants have made a temporary stop along their migration in the outskirts of the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming, authorities said Monday. Of the 15 elephants, one male has broken free from the herd and is currently about 4 km to the northeast of the group, according to the on-site command tracking the elephants.(Photo: Xinhua)

A fruit and vegetable company has received hundreds of customer complaints after tens of thousands of online orders were delayed as a result of a wild Asian elephant herd making a 500km northern trek that passed through Chinese cities, said media reports.

A total of 33,000 orders were delayed and only began to be processed recently, as the local farmers were unable to pick at the farm where the elephants stayed in Yuxi, southwest China's Yunnan Province, from May 28 to 30, according to The Paper on Wednesday.

"We tried to explain over and over again that it's because of the marching mammoths!" said Mao Hongyun, a staffer in charge of the company's e-commerce sales, "Those elephants were spotted around Hongta District, where our farmlands are located, several days ago. We couldn't do the picking because it was dangerous."

However, some of the customers clearly didn't buy it, saying that the reason was "absurd," with hundreds of complaints pouring in.

"I don't see why the elephants' march had anything to do with my order," said one customer, who bought 2.5 kilograms of tomatoes on Friday and is still waiting for the shipment.

The e-commerce platform has compensated customers for the delay and the company recently resumed shipment of orders after the elephants left Yuxi, Kunming and continued heading north.