A woman saved her 3-year-old son before falling and dying on an escalator Sunday in a shopping mall in Jingzhou, Central China's Hubei Province after the metal plate on the escalator suddenly collapsed.

Surveillance footage showed that the 30-year-old woman, Liu Juan, took the escalator to the seventh floor of the shopping mall with her son on Sunday. When they were close to the top, Liu suddenly fell on the moving escalator.

Liu managed to push her son above her shoulder before her body was trapped on the escalator completely. Two mall employees pulled her son to safety.

Liu showed no signs of life when she was pulled out of the escalator four hours later, local newspaper Wuhan Evening News reported.

Chen Guanxin, director of Jingzhou's work safety bureau, said at a press conference that the mall employees failed to take emergency measures to stop the escalator, while the loose metal was spotted five minutes before the accident.

The bureau also vowed to launch security checks on all escalators and elevators in the city.

Another accident on Monday saw a one-year-old child's arm trapped in an escalator in Wuzhou, South China's Guangdong Province, which heightened public concerns over escalator safety.

"A lack of maintenance is causing these accidents. Elevators and escalators are checked by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine before being used," Bao Wenjie, manager of an escalator manufacturer, told the Global Times Monday.

Bao said incidents usually happen on old escalators and elevators and few companies conduct maintenance checks every two weeks as required.

Many manufacturers also use substandard materials, which make elevators and escalators more dangerous. "Some may do so in order to lower prices to become more competitive," Bao said.