China's escalators have claimed another victim after a cleaner's leg was shredded at a shopping centre in Shanghai, the third such documented incident in that country within a week.
The 35-year-old, known as Zhang, was cleaning the escalator after hours on Saturday when his left leg became caught in the section where the stairs meet the floorplate.
The machinery stopped immediately but the man's calf was so badly injured, his lower leg had to be amputated.
The injury came just six days after 31-year-old mother Xiang Liujuan was killed when she fell through an escalator's floorplate at a shopping mall in Jingzhou, central China.
Days later, a one-year-old boy's left arm was mangled by an escalator in Guangxi.
Zhang was taken from the shopping mall in the Changning district to a Shanghai hospital where surgery was performed.
Mall operators and an escalator maintenance company were investigating the incident, the South China Morning Post reported.
The shopping mall said Zhang had "improperly" stepped on his mop, the newspaper said.
"The brush of the mop was trapped inside the gap in the stairs, which caused cracks in the comb plate," the mall said in a statement.
The string of accidents has come to national attention in China, particularly the death of Ms Xiang, who managed to push her two-year-old son to safety in her final moments.
Questions have been raised about safety standards of manufacturers such as Shanghai Mitsubishi, which made the escalator involved in Saturday's accident.
Yang Anqing, a pharmaceutical salesman in Beijing, told The New York Times: "Those responsible must be severely punished, so everybody in the industry can learn a lesson.
"We could be killed by any reckless mechanic. If we can't trust the safety of everyday things like escalators and food, what can we trust?"
Communist Party organ the People's Daily has called for a thorough investigation.
"For the public, questioning and accountability must take place after such an accident," the paper said in a front-page editorial after Ms Xiang's death.
Singapore newspaper The Straits Times reported that Chinese shoppers have been especially wary of escalators over the past week.
CCTV footage showed some patrons prodding the flooring of the machines to check their stability, or jumping over the final step.
CNN reported that 13 people were injured in Shanghai last year when a busy subway escalator abruptly reversed direction.
In 2011, a similar incident in Beijing killed a teenage boy and injured 30 others.
