An escalator that killed a mother at a Chinese mall yesterday was known to be broken before the fatal accident took place, it has been revealed.

Xiang Liujuan, 30, was killed when the footplate at the top of the escalator collapsed beneath her, as she shopped with her two-year-old son in Hubei province.

Before being dragged into the machinery, however, the heroic mother was able to throw her toddler to safety.

It has now emerged that staff at the Jingzhou mall knew screws on the footplate had worked loose five minutes before the incident.

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Danger: Mother Xiang Liujuan, 30, was killed when she fell into an escalator at the Anliang department store in Jingzhou. It has been claimed that the shopping mall staff knew that the footplate was broken before the accident

Shocking: The mother and her two-year-old son rode up the escalator together, but when they step off the escalator at the top, the floor gives way beneath them. It is believed that the women at the top of the escalator tried to warn her before the accident

Chen Guanxin, head of the Jingzhou Work Safety Administration, told the South China Morning Post that workers at the mall were looking into repairing the escalator when Xiang was killed.

It appears from the video that two employees of the mall had been posted at the top of the escalator to keep an eye on the broken escalator.

Zhang Wei, the husband of Xiang was shopping with his family and witnessed the accident from the floor below, believes that the two staff members had tried to warn his wife of the fault.

‘When they were halfway from the sixth floor to the seventh floor, two assistants at the top of the escalator started to tell them that the footplate of the escalator was broken,’ Zhang’s uncle told Chinese news site Thepaper.cn.

Charles Wong Kai-hon, an expert on lift and escalator safety with the Vocational Training Council in Hong Kong said that the design of the escalator was questionable if it needed screws to fasten the footplate.

‘Using screws is not a reliable or safe design,’ he told the South China Morning Post.

Heroic: Before falling into the escalator, Xiang was able to thrust her two-year-old son out of danger. Xiang's husband, Zhang Wei (pictured, holding his son) believes that mall staff tried to warn her the escalator was broken while she was half way up

‘The cover of the machine space should be held stable. It should not be able to rotate as had happened in this case,’ he added.

A tide of concern has swept across China’s social media networks, over the safety of public facilities.

‘Why didn’t the mall immediately shut down the escalator when they knew it had problems? Why was there no warning sign or staffer at the entrance [of the escalator]?’ wrote one user on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.

Another added: 'Why didn't the staffers stop customers at the entrance to the machine or just turn it off?' wrote one. 'The department store is definitely responsible.'

Other users highlighted that none of the three shop assistants tried to press the emergency button to stop the escalator after Xiang was trapped.

The women tried to help Xiang to safety as half of her body dangled into the shaft above the machinery, but were unable to.

Desperate to help: Staff at the department store in Jingzhou struggled to help the woman, after she thrust her child to safety as her body dangled over the escalator machinery. But have been criticised for not turning the escalator off

Aftermath: Social media users claim the shopping mall is responsible for the accident, for failing to fix the allegedly faulty machinery

Recovery operation: Workers spent four hours attempting to remove the woman's body from the escalator machinery

Initial reports claimed that maintenance had just been carried out on the escalator, and that workers had forgotten to screw the access cover back into place.

Rescue crews reportedly took four hours to remove the woman's body from the escalator, which showed 'no signs of life'.

The mall has yet to make a formal statement about the incident.

The accident was one of the top topics on Weibo on Monday with more than 6.6 million views.

Users, moved by the woman's final actions, expressed sympathy for the family.

'I was appalled when I saw her sink and at the same time felt the greatness of maternal love - the mother wasted no time pushing the child out when it happened,' said one.

On-lookers: The mall has yet to make a formal statement about the incident, which became one of top topics on social media sites as users expressed concern and sympathy

Scene of the accident: Xiang's husband witnessed the incident, which was caught on CCTV, from the floor below as he was shopping with his family at the Jingzhou mall

China is prone to safety accidents as regulations and standards are often flouted and enforcement is lax, sometimes due to corruption.

In 2012, a nine-year-old boy was killed after he got stuck in an escalator at a Beijing department store as horrified shoppers looked on.