Alarming video footage from Nanning, Guangxi shows an elderly woman falling inside a sewer after stepping on a manhole cover that crumbled under her weight.
The woman was rescued by bystanders, including a woman who immediately rushed to her aid.
It’s not clear how deep the sewer was, but Chinese regulations stipulate that a “safety net” must be present below the manhole to prevent injuries in emergencies like these.
Manhole accidents are common in China, often because pedestrians step into open ones. Stolen manhole covers are sold for scrap metal that can match a day’s wages for a labourer. According to Xinhua, about 240,000 manhole and street-drain covers were stolen in Beijing in 2004. Manhole accidents have also been associated with the buildup of methane gas, leading to explosions.
Even now that some manhole covers are equipped with anti-theft devices like GPS trackers, many manhole covers in China are now made out of plastic instead of steel.
Here’s the video:
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