The horrific accident in the central city of Jingzhou yesterday was caught on surveillance camera footage.
The woman, identified in media reports as 30-year-old Xiang Liujuan, had reached the top of the escalator when the section of landing platform she had stepped onto suddenly collapsed, trapping her inside the still-moving machinery.
The footage shows that Xiang managed to push her son into the arms of shop attendants near the top of the escalator. The attendants tried to pull her to safety, but Xiang fell into the mechanism and was killed.