Death of a toddler

On the 21st of October, Wang Yue, a 2-year old toddler, died in a Foshan, Guangdong hospital. She died of massive internal injuries sustained a week previously. She had been wandering in a lane in a covered market in the evening when a van ran over her and drove on. The market shopkeepers were indoors and had heard nothing due to the loud rain on the roof


A surveillance video revealed the tragic sequence of events. The first van runs over her, stops briefly, then drives on. A passerby ignores her. The second van runs over her legs. And here is the distressing part: In the 7 minutes after the first accident, at least 18 people walked or drove past the injured toddler and did nothing. Finally an old garbage collection woman finds the toddler and pulls her to one side. At this point the distraught mother arrives on the scene and no more of the video is made public.


When the video, with the most harrowing parts redacted, was broadcast on TV, it went viral and profoundly shocked China and the world. Comments flooded Weibo, a popular Chinese microblogging site. Some wondered why the parents had let the toddler wander off. But most vented their sorrow and anger at the callousness of the passers-by. You should have been running around on this planet in joy, wrote one blogger, but you fled for heaven because of this world's cruelty. Another wrote: In China, there's no bottom line for human ethics anymore! China is 'smashing' new records again and again!


In the wake of the scandal, authorities debated a law mandating that bystanders assist accident victims. But in online polls most felt that this was not the solution, and that the emphasis on economic progress was making people selfish and apathetic. Talk about being civilised first. Is anyone paying attention to that? wrote one blogger. Some raised the possibility that recent high profile cases where Good Samaritans had been successfully sued by the people they helped for contributing to their injuries might have made people reluctant to get involved.


The two van drivers are now in custody. The first driver claims that he did not see the toddler. When the case comes to trial, no doubt this will reignite soul-searching in China about whether their society has become less caring.