Chinese Woman Starves To Death In Elevator

A Chinese woman was inadvertently trapped in an elevator that was being serviced by workers in late January for over a month, and she eventually starved to death. The woman, 43, was said to live alone in her building. Officials now plan to press charges against the workers involved, claiming that they did not take the proper security precautions to ensure that the elevator was free of passengers. A second crew found her corpse approximately a month later when they returned to the building to finalize the maintenance begun by the first crew.

According to Yahoo News, the first crew was called to the scene in the city of Xi’an on January 30 to repair an elevator that had been reported as malfunctioning. When they arrived, they found that the car was trapped between the 10th and 11th floors of the building. They shouted out to see if anyone was in the elevator but heard no reply and so cut the power. No one knows whether the Chinese woman did not call out for help or if the workers simply did not hear her. It was a holiday weekend, so the workers left and did not return until March 1.

Two workers will be charged in the woman’s death, as reported by USA Today. After assessing that the elevator’s cable was broken, they apparently cut the power and told residents of the building to use another elevator car. They contend that they knocked on the doors and shouted to make sure that the car was empty, but they heard no sound from the Chinese woman.

Chinese woman dies in elevator after power cut, body found a month later https://t.co/npztXxLsmw

— NDTV (@ndtv) March 6, 2016

When a second crew returned a month later to make the cable repair, they found a gruesome sight — the woman’s decomposing corpse. A building resident described the scene to reporters.

“Her hands were distorted… there were scratches on the wall, it was horrible.”

Building tenants say that they never heard any sounds coming from the elevator while it was down for repairs during that month-long span. However, local media speculate that many of the residents could have been traveling for the holiday. Along with this, the building has two elevator cars, so it is assumed that other residents would naturally focus their attention on the operating car during that time and would pay little attention to the broken one.

Authorities have ruled out foul play, but officials contend that the workers were grossly negligent in the Chinese woman’s death because they should have actually opened the doors to the elevator and visually determined that it was empty. The workers are formally being charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Chinese woman trapped in elevator for weeks found dead https://t.co/HPEnfhyCVv pic.twitter.com/gZtfqWuAVT

— Courier-Post (@cpsj) March 6, 2016

It seems that China is regularly plagued by safety accidents, as safety regulations and standards are often not followed and enforcement is not consistent, sometimes due to corruption.

This incident is the latest of three high-profile elevator-related deaths that occurred in China over the last year, as described by RT Question More. In one incident, a toddler was killed, and in the other a shopping mall employee was seriously injured.

In another incident involving an escalator, a 30-year-old Chinese mother was killed after a metal plate in the floor opened up after she reached the top of a mall escalator. She fell through the floor and was killed. She, thankfully, was able to toss her two-year-old son, whom she was holding in her arms at the time, to safety before she fell to her death. A shop assistant who was working nearby was able to spring into action and quickly drag him out of harm’s way. It is said that mall staff had failed to previously repair the loose metal flooring.

At this time, it is unknown why none of the Chinese woman’s family, friends, or fellow residents ever alerted authorities to her disappearance.

[Image via Shutterstock]