A man in China has been charged with attempted murder after he shoved his girlfriend down a manhole on the street, where she spent the next 60 hours trying to survive.

A man in China has been charged with attempted murder after he shoved his girlfriend down a manhole on the street, where she spent the next 60 hours trying to survive.

Footage from December shows the man on his own before the incident, lifting the cover off the hole and placing a piece of cardboard over the top.

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Later, he returns to the spot in Haikou City with his girlfriend, and pushes her down the hole. When she stumbles and gets her legs stuck in the gap, he aggressively stuffs her into the hole. Replacing the cover, he then runs from the scene. The woman, known only as Guo, was saved days later when pedestrians heard her crying out for help, and drew her from the hole, TVNZ reported.

While she was trapped, Guo had fashioned a ladder from her clothes which she climbed up, but found she was not strong enough to push the lid and free herself.

"I did not sleep at all the first night I fell in the manhole. I could see the darkness around me. I thought that I would not be choked to death if I looked up," she said.

She added that she suspects her boyfriend, also known as Guo, may have pushed her into the manhole in an attempt to escape paying her 100,000 (£9,891) yuan in debts.

The man told police he intended to kill the woman as he had an affair with her, but later confessed he tried to kill her because of the debt.

Police said the suspect was a gambling addict.