This is the bizarre moment when goldfish frozen solid in their tank come back to life after their water thaws.

An unnamed shop owner in Zhuozhou, Hebei Province, China, had left the fish while she took a week’s holiday during a cold snap.

But when she returned, she found the temperature had sunk so low the fish were frozen stiff in a large block of solid ice.

Video footage released on Douyin – China’s version of TikTok – after finding the fish shows her trying to crack the thick ice surrounding the apparently lifeless fish.

But – she revealed – as the temperature returned to normal, the fish gradually started to revive.

The woman explained that the water had thawed out naturally after she switched the heating on in the store, and she had not expected the fish to still be alive.

Within hours the fish had begun to move again and after a day of warming up, they seemed as if they had never been frozen.

Although unusual, it is known that some fish can survive being frozen in ice because they have the ability to produce a sugar similar to glycol that inhibits crystal formation as water freezes.

Their metabolism slows to almost zero and without the ice crystals in their cells when they thaw out, they miraculously come back to life.

China has been hit by a sudden cold spell which blanketed many parts of the country in thick snow, which caught many people unawares.