A newborn boy is recovering in a Chinese hospital after being rescued from a sewage pipe below a squat toilet by firefighters, who sawed off an L-shaped section and then delicately dismantled it to free the trapped baby.

A tenant heard the baby's cries in the public restroom of a residential building in Zhejiang province in eastern China and notified authorities. A video of the two-hour rescue that followed was broadcast widely on Chinese news programs and websites.

The child — named Baby No. 59 from the number of his hospital incubator — was reported safe in a nearby hospital, and news of the rescue prompted an outpouring from strangers who came to the hospital with diapers, baby clothes, powdered milk and offers to adopt the child. The baby weighed 2.8 kilograms (6.2 pounds) and still had his placenta attached to his body, reports said. His heart rate was low and there were grazes on his head and limbs, but he was largely unscathed.

It was not immediately clear how the baby ended up in the toilet, but police said they were treating the case as an attempted homicide.