The 35-year-old man was cleaning the steps on the escalator from the basement two to basement one levels at the mall in Zhongshan Park when his left calf somehow got wedged between the top step and the floor panel.
Advertisement
The lower left leg of the cleaner was amputated after the escalator collapsed during the weekend. Industry insiders said it’s unsafe to clean the escalator while in operation and should be banned.
Last week, a woman died in Jingzhou, Central China’s Hubei Province while trying to rescue her 3-year-old son after the escalator collapsed, while a 1-year-old child’s arm was trapped in an escalator in Wuzhou, South China’s Guangdong Province.
An escalator at Hong Kong’s Times Square shopping centre dramatically broke down yesterday – less than a week after a woman was killed in an escalator accident in mainland China – sending social media into a frenzy.
The fatality was followed by another escalator tragedy three days later when a one-year-old boy had his arm mangled after it became caught in the stairs of an escalator.
There were 49 escalator accidents in 2014, killing 37 people, an official of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) quoted by state-run Xinhua news agency as saying.
A Times Square spokeswoman said all escalators in the complex had regular check-ups and maintenance and they took safety very seriously.
Advertisement
The escalator, which was manufactured in 2004, has been closed off from the public since Saturday’s incident, CCTV said. Authorities say most of the deaths were caused by improper use and only eight were caused by equipment problems.
