A woman’s body has been found in a lift a month after engineers turned off the power for maintenance work before downing their tools for the Chinese new year holiday.
Engineers returned last week to finish the job in the Chinese city of Xi’an and found the corpse.
Two workers who allegedly turned off the electricity to the lift in the apartment block on January 30 have been detained. They claimed to have shouted a warning, but when no one responded they cut the power without visibly checking if someone was inside.
The victim, identified only by her surname Wu, was 43, lived alone and suffered from mental problems, according to police. Investigators said that her hands were injured from what appeared to be attempts to force the door open.
The incident has caused outrage in Xi’an, home of the Terracotta Army. China has poor records on workplace safety because proper procedures and practices are often ignored, sometimes because of corruption.