A broken escalator in China mall Jingzhou killed Xiang Liujuan, 30, who was a mother of a two year old son.

The escalator was broken before the mother stepped on it along with her two-year-old son.

Before she was dragged into the machine the mother was able to throw her son to the safety but could not save herself.

The husband of Xiang said that he was looking at his wife from the ground below, when he witnessed the two girls standing at the top warning his wife about the broken escalator.

The staff at the Jingzhou mall knew that the screws on the footplate were loose few minutes before the incident.

Chen Guanxin, head of the Jingzhou Work Safety Administration, told the South China Morning Post that the the workers were repairing the escalator when the sad incident happened.