elevator
An advertising of Lufthansa's low-cost brand Eurowings for their long-haul flights to Dubai, Cuba and Thailand is pictured in an elevator at Cologne-Bonn airport, Germany, November 2, 2015. Reuters/Wolfgang Rattay

A woman had been starved to death after being trapped in an elevator for a month. Wu, 43, was found in the broken lift of her residential building on March 1 in Xi’an, China, one month after the maintenance staff left for the extended Chinese New Year break.

According to CCTV News, the woman’s fingers were deformed, and the lift walls were found to be covered in scratch marks, which were believed to be made by Wu in a desperate call for help. Investigators learnt that she was accidentally left inside the lift on Jan. 30 when the elevator company in charge of its repair and maintenance did not thoroughly check if someone was inside before shutting off its power supply.

Shaanxi Kaiwen Mechanical and Electrical Equipment Company responded to complaints by the building’s residents about the broken lift on Jan. 30. It sent two repairmen to do the task. But instead of repairing the elevator, the workers only called out once to check if anyone was still inside the elevator before shutting it down, according to the police. The company did not take any action for over a month, with its workers going on an extended break for the Chinese New Year.

The workers returned on March 1 to check to elevator, only to find Wu’s corpse inside it. The police have determined that the elevator company displayed “gross negligence.” Regulations require the physical opening of the elevator doors to check if someone is trapped inside before shutting it down. As the investigation learnt, the workers sent to repair the elevator did not do such thing. They have since been detained. Local media reports said they are facing involuntary manslaughter charges.

The Gaoling district government has also suspended the Xi’an Huicheng Property Management Company’s licence. The residential community’s management company apparently had been consistently negligent. According to the residents, the management failed with the building’s security, as demonstrated by the number of burglaries last year, as well as with the maintenance of the facilities. Wu’s body was only discovered after the residents began pushing the company to resume the lift repair work.

In response to questions on how Wu could have gone missing for nearly a month without anyone noticing, the police said some of her neighbours noticed Wu’s absence, but no one took it seriously. The woman, who has only been called by her surname in the media, was apparently suffering from mental illness and had been living alone after a divorce. She barely had any visitors in her flat.