Xinhua Insight: "Man-eating" escalators spark safety concerns

Two recent escalator tragedies, which left one woman dead and seriously injured a toddler, have sparked safety concerns in China.

A one-year-old's left arm was caught in the stairs of an escalator in a shopping mall in Wuzhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Monday morning. Rescuers managed to pull the child's arm out half an hour later.

On Sunday, a woman died after falling through a gap that suddenly opened at the top of an escalator at a shopping center in Jingzhou City,Hubei Province.

Security camera video, which went viral online, shows the 31-year-old briefly clinging to the edge of the gap while holding her young son out to be rescued by a mall staff member. The child escaped unharmed, but the mother was later found dead under the escalator.

Chen Guanxin, head of the work safety bureau of Jingzhou, said Monday night that shopping center staff discovered the panel at the top of the escalator was loose five minutes prior to the accident, but they did not take measures to stop its operation for checks and repairs.

The accidents have prompted fresh worries about the safety of the country's elevators and escalators.

In March, an elevator accident killed two people in a hotel in the eastern city of Qingdao. In the same month, a woman was killed in a Shanghai apartment building in another elevator tragedy.

China ranks first worldwide in use and production of elevators and escalators. By the end of 2014, the country had 3.6 million elevators and escalators in use and recorded annual growth of 20 percent, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), the country's top quality watchdog.

Shanghai has 193,000 elevators and escalators in operation, more than any other city in the world.

"Some of the elevators that are fifteen years old or more in China have problems due to age such as abrasion of parts and are prone to malfunction," said Cai Rubin, a clerk with Shanghai Mitsubishi Elevators.

In the southern city of Guangzhou, more than 14,000 people were rescued via the city's elevator emergency handling platform after being trapped last year.

A 2014 survey conducted by AQSIQ on 2,523 elevators aged 15 years or older showed 7 percent of them had major safety risks.

Last year, the country had 48 elevator and escalator-related accidents with a total of 36 deaths reported to quality inspection authorities, according to the administration.

In May and June, AQSIQ dispatched supervision teams to nine provinces to check elevator and escalator safety inspections by local quality watchdogs.

Yang Yanhui, an official in charge of special equipment inspection with the Guangzhou Quality Inspection Bureau, pointed out some property management firms tend to choose maintenance firms based on low prices at the expense of quality.

"The gap between the rapid growth of special equipment such as elevators and escalators and the lack of sufficient safety inspection staff is very wide and supervision cannot fully depend on government," said Huang Gengping, an official with the Guangxi special equipment emergency handling and investigation center.

In Nanning, regional capital of Guangxi, fewer than 20 government employees are responsible for safety supervision of 17,300 elevators.

"Stronger public supervision is urgently needed," he added. Endi