A 10-year-old girl was killed after falling on a conveyor belt at a ski resort in Linyi, east China's Shandong Province on Thursday. It is the third tragic death on Chinese slopes within a month as the country is embracing a skiing craze in the run-up to hosting the Winter Olympics in 2022.
The girl, who was not identified, slipped on a conveyor belt built to carry visitors up Chashan Mountain in Linyi’s Lanshan District around 10:38 a.m. Her hair and arm got caught in the moving belt, the Lanshan government said on its Weibo account.
A 10-year-old girl died in an accident in the ski resort in Linyi, Shandong Province on February 9. /iqilu.com Photo
The girl was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
Local police said they have detained the manager of the resort and further investigation is underway.
The other two deaths within the past month both came in Zhangjiakou, the venue for the Winter Olympics, before the Chinese Lunar New Year. A female student from Peking University and a 10-year-old boy from Beijing died in separate skiing accidents.
The woman was reportedly killed after hitting a tree head first. The boy, who had three years’ skiing experience, fell off a cliff.
The incidents have alarmed national sports authorities.
On Thursday, Gao Zhidan, the deputy chief of the General Administration of Sport, urged authorities and companies to put safety first, referring to the recent ski accidents.
Gao Zhidan, the deputy chief of the General Administration of Sport. /Xinhua Photo
He made the remarks in a meeting with officials from 16 provinces and cities and delegates from nearly 30 ski resorts in Beijing.
Chinese Ski Association deputy chief Ren Hongguo also laid out a guideline on ski resort safety regulations.
More and more Chinese people have been hitting the slopes since the launch of an official push behind the ski industry.
President Xi Jinping decreed that the 2022 games would persuade an additional 300 million Chinese to become regular skiers. That number is more than 20 times the 13 million regular skiers that China currently has.
VCG Photo
There were 568 ski resorts across China in 2015, up 110 percent from five years earlier, according to a report by China’s largest homebuilder, Vanke.
The Wanda Group conglomerate has splashed out 20 billion yuan (2.9 billion US dollars) to build a resort with 43 trails on Changbaishan Mountain in northeast China.
