A trampling incident involving an escalator has injured 16 primary students going to a playground at a mall in Nanjing, Jiangsu.

At around 10 yesterday morning, some 40 to 50 Grade 1 and 2 students from the Yuhuatai Experimental School were going to Happy World at the Rsun Mall as part of their annual autumn outing. As Sina News reports, the kids got onto an escalator to the third floor, but the double glass doors to the playground there were locked. The small platform on the third floor was only three square meters, so with kids coming up the escalator it quickly filled up leading to a pileup and injuries.

Nearly 20 students were on the escalator at the time of the incident. Sixteen were taken to Pukou Hospital, of which five are listed in serious condition and have been transferred to the hospital’s children ward.

Related:

• The Deadly School Stampede: China’s Annual Tragedy
• Shanghai Police Respond to Deadly New Year’s Trampling at Historic Bund Waterfront
• Fainting Passenger Sparks Panicked Stampede on Guangzhou Metro
• One Second a Woman is Riding a Department Store Escalator, The Next Second She’s Dead
• Boy Swallowed Up in Another Deadly Escalator Accident in China

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The incident occurred on Line 2 between Feixiang Park Station and Sanyuanli Station, just north of Guangzhou Railway Station Line 5 interchange.

One witness said the passengers were like a wave as they swept from one train carriage to the next. Another person at the scene described it this way:

A stampede almost broke out when the passengers at the back of the car began pushing those in front. Many people fell to the ground.

It remains unclear how many people were injured in the incident. Many passengers are said to have fallen during the rush, and medical assistance was reported be on hand to provide aid to victims, which included a woman who was pregnant.

Eyewitnesses at the scene also say hearing “knife attack” shouted only escalated the state of panic among passengers. The rumor quickly circulated online as netizens erroneously passed on the information.

This past April, 12 passengers were injured during a stampede on the Shenzhen Metro when a person passed out in a subway car. In August of last year, passengers on the Shanghai Metro emptied a subway car in ten seconds when an expat passenger fainted.

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The incident occurred yesterday morning around 8:30 on the platform of Huangbeiling Station on Shenzhen Metro Line 5. The fainting caused a panic among other commuters as they scrambled over each other, leaving behind their shoes and other miscellaneous items.

The 12 victims sent to hospital are all described as having non-life threatening injuries.

It remains unclear why the woman fainted, or if this person was included in the list of victims requiring medical attention. Commuters have been advised that they can return and pick up their discarded shoes and items from the police station.

On December 14, 2010, the Shenzhen Metro was the scene of a previous trampling incident when an escalator at Guomao Station malfunctioned, injuring 25 communters.

There have been a number of cases involving fainting on subways over the past year. Last August, an expat that fainted on a Shanghai subway caused his fellow passengers to run away in fear, emptying the car in less than ten seconds.  Last July, a pregnant woman fainted and fell on the tracks as a Beijing subway was rolling into the station, but was able to escape injury.

The most tragic case of a person falling unconscious at a subway station involved a woman who passed out in the Shenzhen Metro last year, only to be ignored by other commuters for the better part of an hour. By the time emergency services arrived, she had already passed away.

This news report show surveillance video of commuters on the crowded platform trying to get away, but does not directly show the trampling itself:

Related:

• The Deadly School Stampede: China’s Annual Tragedy
• Knife Attack Rumor Launches Stampede on Guangzhou Metro
• Shanghai Police Respond to Deadly New Year’s Trampling at Historic Bund Waterfront

The post 12 Trampled In Shenzhen Subway Stampede appeared first on The Nanfang.

China rang in the new year in a tragic way after a stampede along Shanghai’s historic Bund waterfront resulted in 36 deaths and scores of injuries. It happened in Chen Yi Square on the west bank of the Bund, a popular spot for young Shanghai residents to celebrate the coming year. In fact, most of the victims were young adults attending university, with the youngest victim listed as a 12 year-old boy.

Of the 49 people injured in the incident, 24 have been treated and released from the hospital. Seven patients remain in serious condition, with one in critical condition.

Early Weibo reports said the crowd started to move en masse when US dollars appeared to have been thrown from a rooftop by these people, a story that has since been refuted by government sources.

Stills taken from video show people falling down at the bottom of a set of stairs to a viewing platform; it appears the flow of pedestrian traffic coming down from the upper level was too strong, leading to many people being trampled.

Here is an eyewitness video that shows the chaos and panic at the scene; a translation of the on-screen text appears below (WARNING: turn down your speakers):

At 11:30pm on December 31, 2014, people began converging (at the Bund in Shanghai).
At 11:34pm, people at the bottom of a flight of stairs (to an observation deck) were pushed down.
At 11:40pm, several young people enlisted everyone to begin chanting: Go back! More people joined in the chanting, and the flow of people pouring down from the upper stairs began to slow.
At 11:50pm, the volume of people on the upper level has begun to wane. After freeing up some space, work began on helping the (pile of people), from top to bottom.
As of 2pm on January 1, this trampling incident has caused 36 fatalities. 2015 has not even begun, and yet the mourning for lost life has already started.

At a press conference held on January 1, the Huangpu branch of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau “expressed regret over their failure to effectively intervene” when the flow of pedestrian traffic on the Bund dramatically increased at 11:30pm.

Deputy commander of the branch Cai Lixin said police “cut through forcibly to enter the heart of the crowd and found some people had ‘physical discomfort’,” a statement that supports eyewitness claims of police brutality as a way to control the crowd. (emphasis added)

Some of the confusion could have been regarding an annual laser show that is usually staged on the Bund each year, but was cancelled this year. Local authorities told Xinhua that there were no official New Year celebration activities organized on Wednesday night, however other reports said just six days before, the laser show was slated to happen even though it was cancelled sometime between then and New Year’s Eve.

An annual tradition starting in 2011 as the “4D Laser Show”, the cancellation of this year’s “5D Legendary Laser Show” was largely unknown to the masses of young people who went out to the Bund to see it.

As well, this year would have marked substantial changes to the show. Previously free to the public, this year’s “5D Legendary Laser Show” would have charged tickets for premium viewing areas and moved to the “Source of the Bund”, an obscure area that may be unknown to seasoned Shanghai residents.

Cai said the reason police didn’t restrict the pedestrian traffic is because based on their estimates, it wasn’t warranted. The police said the Bund is a public place, so it’s difficult to restrict pedestrian traffic.

No roads or subways stations were closed on the Bund for New Year’s Eve. Pedestrian traffic along several side streets leading up to the Bund were regulated, but no such precautions were taken at the Bund, where throngs of people converged without barriers up and down the street.

A memorial was held for the victims on January 2, when bystanders gathered to watch and take pictures of mourners paying their respects to the deceased.

Photos: CCTV, People’s Daily Online, Beijing Youth Report, Sina Video

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