Chinese escalator’s floor collapses weeks after man’s foot amputated after accident on another of firm’s machines: report
The floor of an escalator partially collapsed at a subway station in Shanghai only weeks after a cleaner in the city had a foot amputated after it got trapped in a moving stairway made by the same manufacturer.
A section of flooring at the top of the escalator at Hongkou Football Stadium station suddenly reared up on Tuesday, leaving an exposed hole, the Paper.cn reported.
The escalator stopped when it malfunctioned and nobody was injured in the incident, the article said.
The escalator was made by Shanghai Mitsubishi, according to the article.
One of the firm’s machines was involved in the accident earlier this month when a 35-year-old cleaner got his foot trapped while he was cleaning the escalator at a shopping mall in Shanghai.
It became stuck in the section where the stairs meet the floor plate.
The company was contacted by the subway operator after the latest incident and sent its workers to repair the escalator and also to examine two other moving stairways at the station.
The cause of the breakdown is still under investigation.
The three escalators have been in use at the station since 2012, the report said. They were all shut down for three hours while checks were carried out and passengers were told to use the stairs.
A 30-year-old woman was killed last month when the footplate at the top an escalator in a shopping mall in central China collapsed underneath her feet and she fell into the moving stairway’s machinery.
Seconds before the accident in Jingzhou in Hubei province, she managed to throw her two-year-old son to safety.
The accidents prompted a debate on social media in China about the safety and maintenance of lifts and escalators.
