China is emphasizing escalator safety after a young mother was crushed to death by the machinery of a retail store’s moving staircase – witnessed by the little boy and store workers, and caught on store security video.  And the tragedy was compounded when official media sources at first appeared blame the victim.

The video is difficult to watch.  It shows 30-year old Xiang Liujuan and her son approaching the top of the escalator with some store employees waiting at the landing.  But when she steps off, the landing gives way beneath Xiang and she falls into the machinery.  Xiang quickly pushes the boy to store employees who try to grab her hand – but they’re no match for the gears and the young mother is pulled in. 

What happened next was stunning.  Instead of sympathy for Xiang’s family, China’s People’s Daily declared, “Pay Attention to This Life-Saving Button,” explaining to readers where the emergency stop button was located on escalators.  Others suggested the family was trying to extract financial concessions from the store, or that the family might have staged the tragedy.

But in a country plagued by shoddy construction and lax safety standards, people began questioning why the escalator was still running in the store in the city of Jingzhou, Hubei province.  Other commentators demanded to know the brand of escalator, after last year’s scandal in which eleven people had been arrested on suspicion of selling more than 100 counterfeit brand-name elevators across China.