NEW reports suggest a toddler who was beaten by a 10-year-old girl has actually survived and is in hospital with fractures and a ruptured lung.

Earlier reports said that Yuanyuan, who is nearly two years old, died after being beaten by the 10-year-old and thrown off a 25th floor balcony in Chongqing, China.

CCTV footage showed Yuanyuan's mother accidentally leaving her child in an elevator. The girl is then seen getting in the elevator, picking up the child before dropping him twice, kicking and stomping on him.

It is the last images of Yuanyaun before the 10-year-old reportedly threw the child from a balcony. The long-haired girl, wearing a backpack and a light-blue jacket and pink neck scarf, seems at first like any other senior primary student.

She apparently told the mother that Yuanyuan was taken away by a boy, and then changed her story saying it was a girl who took him away.

It is not known if the girl was known to the mother and child.

In fresh reports the father of the 10-year-old girl says "communication problems" may have contributed to his daughters behaviour and that he and his wife's constant scolding of their daughter may have had a negative impact on her psychological wellbeing.

"Police investigations show that she may have kicked the toddler but did not purposely throw him down," the man, surnamed Li, said in reports. "The boy may have fallen down the building because he was in shock."

Mr Li said his daughter loved children and animals and that she told him that she had hit the child because he was making faces at her and wasn't friendly. He says his daughter has had a complete mental breakdown since the incident.

He has compensated Yuanyuan's family with 58,000 yuan ($10,500) towards the baby's medical bills.

Mr Li said the family will work with police during their investigation.

The sickening case brings back horrifying memories of the UK's James Bulger case, in which two ten-year-old boys abducted, tortured and murdered the little two-year-old.

The killers, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, are now both adults and living under assumed identities.