Chinese firefighters have rescued a newborn baby boy from a sewer pipe below a toilet after a member of the public heard its cries.
Rescuers in the eastern Zhejiang province delicately dismantled the piping to free the baby.
A tenant heard an infant crying in the toilet of a residential building on Saturday and notified authorities, according to the state-run news site Zhejiang News.
Video footage of the two-hour rescue that followed has been broadcast widely on Chinese news programmes and websites.
The child – named Baby Number 59 after the number of his incubator – was reported to be safe in a nearby hospital.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=rHW_fn2W9HQ%3Frel%3D0
News of the rescue prompted an outpouring of goodwill from strangers, who came to the hospital with nappies, baby clothes, powdered milk and offers to adopt the child.
Police are treating the case as an attempted homicide, and are looking for the mother and anyone else involved in the incident.
The landlord of the building, in Pujiang county, told Zhejiang News that it was unlikely the birth took place in the toilet because there was no evidence of blood and she was not aware of any recent pregnancies among her tenants.
The baby was stuck in the L-joint of the pipe, which had a diameter of about three inches.
The video footage shows rescuers sawing out a section of the pipe along a ceiling that was apparently just below the level of the toilet. The rescuers then took the entire section of pipe to a hospital, where firefighters and medics alternately used pliers and saws to open the L-joint and free the child.
Despite the offers to adopt Baby Number 59, a doctor at the hospital said the boy would be handed over to social services if his parents do not show up to claim him, Zhejiang News said.