Going Down.docVIP

Going Down 　　Ms Liu tries not to take the elevator anymore. Instead， the Beijing resident climbs seven flights of stairs several times a day to get to her apartment. This was a recent change and had nothing to do with physical exercise ?C it was for physical safety. 　　“There have been a number of gruesome elevator and escalator accidents this year，” she said. “I can make do with the climb every day. I try not to take the elevator if I have the time and energy to take the stairs.” 　　She is not the only one to make this change. In a recent online NewsChina survey， 71 percent of the 512 respondents said they get nervous when taking the elevator， and 15 percent indicated that they “try not to take the elevator.” 　　In the first half of 2015， at least 30 elevator- and escalator-related accidents were reported across the country， resulting in 27 fatalities. On July 26， a surveillance video that showed a woman who died after being dragged into an escalator mechanism went viral online. Xiang Liujuan， 31， was with her two-year-old son at a shopping mall in Jingzhou， Hubei Province， when she stepped onto a loose panel at the top of an escalator. She fell through， just managing to lift her son to safety before she was killed. 　　According to China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision， Inspection and Quarantine （AQSIQ）， there were 3.6 million elevators and escalators in China by the end of 2014， with that number rising by 20 percent year-on-year. What’s more， China has the most elevators and escalators of any country worldwide， the highest annual production volume and the highest rate of growth due to the country’s rapid urbanization. The two cities with the largest number of elevators in the world are Shanghai and Beijing. 　　On September 9， 2013， during an elevator safety promotion event， AQSIQ deputy chief Chen Gang told the media that China’s elevatorrelated accident rate is 0.15 per 10，000 elevators， and the mortality rate is 0.11， close to that of develo