“The shopping mall is still open and the killer escalators are still running”, Xiang’s sister-in-law said.
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A seconds-long security camera footage of the incident posted online shocked the public and stirred up heated discussion over escalator safety.
The 30-second video begins innocently enough: As the escalator in a shopping mall nearly reaches the top, a woman in a white shirt and black skirt lifts up her young son to get ready to step off. The mother fell into the machinery beneath her but managed to push her two-year-old son to safety before she was killed.
The horrifying footage shows her struggle to free herself as she becomes trapped in the escalator track but then disappear as it swallows her alive. Almost at the same moment, the panel she stepped on collapsed. The husband was waiting on the entrance of the facility on the sixth-floor as his wife decided to take the son to an upper floor for a tour.
Thirty-year-old housewife Xiang Liujuan was killed after she plunged through flooring over an escalator in a Chinese department store in Hubei’s Jingzhou city.
“But the warning from the store attendants was already too late”. There were efforts from a couple of staff members who were at the top of the escalator but their efforts were in vain as they were unable to save her. A briefing was held by local authorities on the outcome of a preliminary investigation.
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According to reports, maintenance had just been carried out on the escalator, and the workers forgot to screw the access cover back into place. It is still unknown why no one thought to stop the escalator before the accident happened.
