Man has foot amputated after falling into escalator at a Shanghai mall

A supermarket cleaner has had his leg amputated after it became stuck in an escalator in the third such terrifying incident in the past week.

The lower left leg of the cleaner was amputated after the escalator collapsed during the weekend.

Chinese state television showed surveillance camera footage of the moment a janitor’s foot was caught in an escalator at a shopping mall in Shanghai late Saturday night.

It is the third high-profile escalator-related tragedy to befall China in a week, further increasing the paranoia among users in the country.

Last week, a young mother was killed when she fell through a mall’s collapsed floor and was sucked into an escalator’s machinery in Hubei.

Two days before that in the southwestern province of Guangxi, a toddler’s left hand and arm were caught in a gap of an escalator after he tripped and fell at the bottom, firefighters told local media.

The escalator maintenance company are investigating the accident, with initial investigations speculating that the accident occurred from ‘improper operation of the escalator.’.

There were 49 escalator accidents in 2014, killing 37, an official of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) said, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The escalator was stopped and blocked to prevent anyone from approaching it, the report said.

The central government has ordered all provincial governments, including that of Shanghai, to inspect and make sure that escalators in every mall operate properly before August 10.