World

Outcry over child traffic incident

09:20 am on 18 October 2011

There has been an outcry in China after the broadcast of a video showing a child being run over twice by vans in a market, as passers-by drive past or walk on.

The child, a girl aged two years, was left on the street for seven minutes before being helped by a rubbish collector. She is now in a hospital and is said to be seriously hurt.

The BBC reports the footage showed the van hitting the little girl, pausing briefly while she was under the vehicle and then driving away, running over her legs.

It then showed about a dozen passers-by, including cyclists, a motorcyclist and a woman and child, noticing the little girl lying injured in the street but walking on.

The China Daily reported the child was taken to hospital for emergency surgery but pronounced brain dead on Sunday.

The newspaper said she had wandered off while her mother went to collect some laundry.

The newspaper said the drivers of both vehicles have now been arrested, but the incident has also triggered an outcry.

It also provoked a storm of comment on Weibo, a microblogging site.

The China Daily previously reported incidents in January in which elderly men who fell in the street, were left alone because people did not want to get involved.