[This post contains content that may be upset some readers]
Deadly, dysfunctional escalators have again captured national attention in China again after a freak accident killed a mother at a Hubei shopping mall in eastern China.
A surveillance video captures the horrifying incident in which the mother is seen disappearing into an unsecured floor panel at the top an escalator at the Annian shopping mall in Jingzhou.
The victim, 30 year-old Xiang Liujuan, was accompanying her son from the sixth to seventh floor. Xiang’s son also nearly fell inside the escalator, but was heroically thrown by Xiang into the grasp of department store greeters that can be seen waiting on the seventh floor.
As seen from the video (below), no attempt was made to activate the “emergency stop” button on the escalator by the two greeters or a maintenance staff worker that was present at the time of the incident. All three workers walked away in confusion after Xiang disappeared inside the escalator.
Rescue efforts to reach Xiang took four hours by firefighters and maintenance workers, who cut out part of the escalator to extract her. During this time, a Weibo user that was identified as Xiang’s sister-in-law kept posting messages praying that Xiang would be safely rescued.
Preliminary reports suggest a misplaced screw during repairs made the day before caused the floor panel to give way.
Here’s the leaked surveillance video of the incident (contains shocking content):
And then yesterday, another escalator mishap was reported in the news.
The arm of a one year-old child got caught inside an escalator mechanism at the Sun Mall in Wuzhou, Guangxi. He had to have his arm amputated at the elbow to be freed.
Escalator accidents have commonly occurred in China, resulting in injuries and sometimes death.
The most serious case happened in July 2011 when 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 to form at the bottom.
In 2010, 24 people were injured when an escalator at the Guomao Station of the Shenzhen Metro suddenly began going in reverse. The next year, days after the Beijing Metro tragedy, another escalator accident injured four people at the Shenzhen Metro’s Qinghu Station when eyewitnesses said it began moving backwards. Also in 2011, three people were injured in a mysterious incident involving an escalator at the Xiamen Railway BRT Station.
In 2012, a nine year-old boy died instantly when he stuck his head out from a moving escalator in a Beijing shopping mall. In 2013, eight students were injured while taking an escalator at an amusement center in Shenzhen, four of whom were in serious condition.
Last year, a malfunctioning escalator at the Guangzhou East Railway Station suddenly sped up, sending 11 people to the hospital. Also in 2014, a woman pushing a baby stroller caused an escalator to malfunction at the busy People’s Square Station on the Shanghai Metro, leading to ten injured people.
Just last month, an unaccompanied child playing with an escalator fell from the second floor of a Guangxi shopping mall.