In footage from an Anhui shopping mall in the city of Xuancheng, a father and son are seen stepping off an escalator only to watch it collapse behind them. If they had gotten on only a second or two later, they would have been food for the machine.
The video has raised alarms online. A few years back, China experienced a terrifying string of escalator accidents. While things had quieted down recently, just one day after this incident occurred, a 1-year-old kid in Hunan province nearly got his arm ripped off by another shopping mall escalator.