[Caution: this post contains content that may be upsetting to some readers]

A tragedy at a local supermarket in Ankang, Shaanxi has claimed the life of a young boy when a storage locker used by customers at the store entrance unexpectedly fell down this past Monday evening.

Surveillance video shows an unidentified woman accompanied by her 6 year-old son removing something from the locker. Just thirteen seconds after first using the locker, the entire two meter-high cabinet unexpectedly falls forward onto the pair.

After falling, the boy is no where to be seen, while the right leg of the woman is trapped under the storage locker. Immediately, people at the scene race over to lift the storage locker to free the victims. Once the locker is lifted up, a pool of blood can be seen on the ground.

The boy was sent to hospital, but died from his injuries. The woman received a fracture right leg from the incident, and remains in hospital.

A reporter from the China Economic Report said the supermarket has been closed since the accident, and the locker has since been removed. However, the reporter noted that the storage locker was positioned on top of a ten centimeter-high concrete pedestal that had a slight inclination.

A local resident said the supermarket had put wooden boards underneath the locker to help balance it. The boards are clearly visible in the surveillance video after the locker falls down.

The supermarket had been open for just two weeks before the incident occurred. The manager, a man named Yang, said the store’s many customers had likely shifted the locker’s position, leading to its eventual fall.

Local police say an investigation is ongoing. The supermarket has already provided some compensation for the victim’s medical fees.

This past October, another shocking surveillance video of a supermarket showed a father accidentally killing his own child by falling backwards on top of him.

The post Tragedy as Shaanxi Supermarket Storage Locker Falls and Kills 6 Year Old Boy appeared first on The Nanfang.

Located next to the Jiulongshan subway station at Guangqu Road and Xidawang Road in the city’s Chaoyang District, debris from the collapse damaged a number of cars on the road below and at least two people suffered minor injuries.

A worker at the construction site said he saw a woman get hurt. “I saw her get hit in the head just as she came out of the subway exit. Her nose was bleeding, and at the time she said that she couldn’t feel her right hand,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Jiangsu Zhongnan Construction Industry Group said the site remains under investigation and police have blocked off the area.

Photographs taken at the scene show a mangled mess of poles precariously dangling above the road:

The post Construction Scaffolding Collapses At Beijing Building appeared first on The Nanfang.

Chenchen (a pseudonym) died at the scene when the rope he was holding suddenly snapped, and he fell five floors to the street below.

Local police confirmed that Chenchen’s grandparents forgot their house key inside their fourth floor apartment, and had kept fifth-grade Chenchen from school to help get inside.

As a “left-behind child”, Chenchen was solely under the guardianship of his grandparents. His parents, who both work out-of-province, have been notified and are returning to Baishu.

Local police have determined Chenchen’s death was an “accident”. Reports of the incident don’t mention any criminal charges.

The post 11 Year Old Falls To His Death After Grandparents Forget House Keys appeared first on The Nanfang.

A six month-old baby in Changsu, Suzhou suffered second and third-degree burns after an operating hair dryer next to the child caught fire. The baby suffered burns to 50 percent of his body.

According to Li Ying, Director of the local hospital’s ICU, the baby’s right leg suffered the most severe burns. Only the baby’s back and buttocks were unharmed by the fire. Li says the child remains in serious condition.

The boy’s mother explained that her baby “enjoyed” the sound of the hair dryer, and so she would leave it on to “soothe” the child. The boy’s mother placed the hair dryer 20 to 30 centimeters away from the child on the bed while she left the room to concentrate on household chores.

The mother also insists she left the hair dryer on the “cold air” setting.

When the mother returned ten minutes later, she found that the sleeping mat the baby was lying on had caught on fire.

The hair dryer is suspected to have “short-circuited” because the main circuit breaker of the house was found to have been triggered after the fire.

The post Child Badly Burned After Hair Dryer Starts A Fire appeared first on The Nanfang.

The inaugural flight of a Cessna 208B crashed into the Shanghai-Hangzhou Expressway No. 7835 Bridge during an attempted water takeoff. The flight was supposed to be the first in a new sightseeing service to the Zhoushan Archipelago.

Onboard the amphibious plane were the captain, co-pilot, and eight passengers, including a reporter and cameraman from Shanghai Television Station, and six district government workers.

The captain and four passengers, who were all sitting at the rear of the plane, were transported to Jinshan Hospital for medical treatment, and were reportedly in stable condition.

“Before takeoff, the seaplane had been taxiing on the water for about 20 minutes. It suddenly accelerated and turned left sharply. The co-pilot shouted ‘bridge!’ before the seaplane crashed onto it,” said cameraman Wu Liangliang.

Wu described the horrific experience: “It was like a dream,” he said. “My glasses and camera floated away and I saw several passengers in the front seats bleeding from their faces after the crash.”

Another survivor, Song Wanjun, the Deputy Director of the district’s news and media center, described how he escaped from the crash: “I pushed out several passengers sitting on the backseats and managed to escape from the back door after the plane crashed, but those sitting on the front seats failed to escape in time.”

The Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC) has launched an investigation, and is analyzing the information retrieved from the in-flight recorder (“black box”).

Joy General advertises itself as the first aviation company in China to widely use amphibious aircraft. The small airline offers short flights for tourists to nearby islands, in addition to sightseeing tours and charters.

The post Five Dead In Shanghai Airplane Crash appeared first on The Nanfang.

Last Saturday afternoon, a woman dropped her phone into a toilet that set off a chain reaction of successive tragedies. First, the woman’s husband, Niu Xiaofei, crawled down into the septic tank below the pit toilet to retrieve the phone, but fainted. When another man went after the husband to pull him out, he also fainted. A third man followed the second man, only to meet the same fate.

At this point, no one else was willing to go into the septic tank, so emergency services were called a half hour after the phone first dropped into the pit toilet. But when firefighters arrived, they realized that the enclosure was too small to allow them to perform the rescue while wearing a breathing apparatus. Faced with this dilemma, the rescuers decided to perform the rescue without the safety gear.

The firefighter given the task to perform the rescue, Liu Zhou, was able to secure harnesses to the first two men to have them pulled out. However, the fumes of the septic tank were also too strong for Liu, and he fainted on his descent to save the last victim. A second firefighter was called upon to go down into the septic tank and successfully rescue out Liu and the last victim.

Liu is said to be recovering from minor injuries, while the three victims are all said to have sustained major injuries. Their current conditions are unknown.

If this story seems familiar, it’s because it has happened a number of times before, and all have had fatal results.

• A Henan man and his mother both died while trying to retrieve his wife’s new mobile phone that had dropped into a septic tank in May 2014. Three other people were also injured in the rescue.
• Three Taiyuan residents died in July 2013 when trying to retrieve a phone that had fallen down a toilet into the septic tank.
• After their daughter fell down a toilet in June 2013 while trying to retrieve a dropped phone, a Handan mother and father also fell in, resulting in two deaths.
• A Yuncheng, Shanxi boy died while trying to retrieve his phone that fell inside a pit toilet in May 2010.
• A man named Zhang from Changzhou, Hubei died while helping his neighbor retrieve a phone accidentally dropped down a pit toilet in September 2008.

In just about all cases, reports don’t clarify if the phone was successfully retrieved.

The post With iPhone Lost, 3 People Dive into Septic Tank and Get Trapped appeared first on The Nanfang.

The incident occurred on Monday at the Wanda theme park in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. The “Coaster Through the Clouds” suddenly came to a halt while climbing the ride’s steep incline.

It took park employees 20 minutes just to get to the riders. Once there, each rider’s safety harness had to be manually removed. Only after every rider was free did they make their decent on a narrow staircase.

This past March, 26 riders were left hanging 30 meters upside down for 20 minutes after the “Crystal Heavenly Wing” roller coaster came to an abrupt halt at Happy Valley Amusement Park in Beijing.

Last year Labor Day, an accident claimed two fatalities when five people fell off the “Crazy Scream” ride at an amusement park in Zhejiang when their safety harnesses were not properly secured. Last fall, a mother and her son sustained serious injuries when they were flung into the air from a giant octopus ride in Wuhan. And in April 2015, 19 people were injured at a temple fair in Henan when an amusement ride broke in half.

The post Roller Coaster Riders Left Stranded 70 Meters Above Ground appeared first on The Nanfang.

Suspended 30 meters in the air, the riders were eventually rescued by park employees. Other than a few frights, no one was seriously injured.

Happy Valley released an official statement explaining that automatic safety measures, believed to have been activated by an errant bird, brought the ride to a standstill. The park confirmed that the ride promptly went back into operation following a security check.

While initial reports claim the rollercoaster riders were offered refunds, recent reports suggest otherwise. One of the riders interviewed by CCTV, identified as “Xiaolu”, said Happy Valley refused to offer ticket refunds:

Once we all came down (from the rollercoaster), they immediately made us leave without even offering an apology.

According to Xiaolu, being left hanging upside down was terrifying:

It was so high and we were all facing downward, and our legs were hanging freely. (We) didn’t dare make a move due to the way the safety belts (were designed). (We) were scared that with the slightest movement, the safety belts would come loose.

Xiaolu described being rescued as even more dangerous:

The way the situation was resolved was to have us climb down a ladder. Nobody helped us get down… My legs at the time were so bad that I could hardly climb down.

Although Happy Valley hasn’t seen many accidents before, a water ride which malfunction in 2013, stranded 20 park visitors ten meters off the ground for ten minutes.

Last Labor Day, two people were killed when five people fell off a ride at an amusement park in Zhejiang. The month before, 19 people were injured when an amusement ride at a temple fair broke in half. And last September, a mother and son riding an “Octopus” ride in Wuhan were injured when they were flung off while riding it.

The post Beijing Rollercoaster Riders Left Hanging Upside Down appeared first on The Nanfang.

Qianqian (a pseudonym) underwent a successful five-hour operation at the Wuhan University Oral Medical Hospital to remove 24 steel pellets embedded on the lower left side of her face and jaw. This follows a previous surgery which removed ten pellets.

On January 8, Qianqian and her male cousin went to their grandparents’ house in Yichun, Jiangxi. The boy found a nail gun that was being used for a renovation. After stuffing the barrel with steel pellets, the boy aimed and fired the nail gun at Qianqian’s face.

The children were unattended at the time, but Qianqian was quickly taken to hospital by her grandparents. Qianqian’s parents, who were in Zhejiang working, quickly returned home upon hearing the news.

Due to the number of steel fragments embedded in her face, Qianqian was transferred to Wuhan University Oral Medical Hospital on January 14. There, an internal 3D imaging device likened to a “medical GPS”, was used to remove the remaining pieces (shown above).

Deputy director of orthopedics Li Zhi explained just how lucky Qianqian is:

The (majority of the wounds) mainly converged upon the left side of the face. However, if the gun was aimed just a bit higher, Qianqian might have lost her sight. If aimed just a bit lower, the pellets could have ruptured the main arteries of her neck, threatening her life.

Chinese news reports of the incident do not mention any response from police. There has been no mention of criminal charges against the boy or the owner of the nail gun.

Unattended children in China have been involved in a number of recent escalator accidents and falls from apartment buildings.

The post Boy Shoots 13 Year-Old Cousin In Face With Nail Gun appeared first on The Nanfang.

[This post contains graphic content which may be upsetting to some readers]

An escalator in China has claimed another life at a subway station in Chongqing yesterday.

A four year-old boy died after he was reportedly left unattended with his three year-old sister at the Red Flag Brook subway station, a busy transfer point for the city’s Line 3 and 6 subway routes. At around 11am, the boy was playing with his back to an escalator when he suddenly fell down, and was pulled into the handrail mechanism.

Eyewitnesses say the mother rushed back and frantically tried to pull the boy out herself, but was unsuccessful. After a minute of trying, the boy stopped moving.

Attempts to revive the boy at the hospital were unsuccessful.

Later that afternoon, the Chongqing Municipal Rail Transport Corporation reminded parents to keep a close eye on their kids:

The rail corporation is very saddened at this kind of incident. We again remind all commuters to maintain care of their children and elderly in order to prevent such accidents from ever happening again.

This past July, a mother died a horrific death on video when she fell through an unsecured floor panel while visiting a shopping mall in Hubei. The incident became so entrenched in the public’s mind that shopping malls throughout China affixed decals to escalator floor panels in order to assure patrons they won’t fall through.

In July 2011, a 13 year-old teenager died and 40 people were injured when an escalator headed to the upper floor of the Beijing Zoo Station of the Beijing Metro suddenly slammed into reverse, causing a pile-up of bodies at the bottom.

Unattended children injured in accidents involving escalators have happened before in China, too. This past June, mall surveillance video recorded an unaccompanied child falling from the second floor of a Guangxi shopping mall after playing with an escalator handrail.

The post Boy Swallowed Up in Another Deadly Escalator Accident in China appeared first on The Nanfang.