A trending video has shown the moment a seven-year-old girl threw a smaller playmate down a well in China.
The video has raised concern about the influence of TV images on young children, especially as the girl said that she committed the act in imitation of what she saw on television.
The incident, captured by surveillance cameras in a village in Yunnan’s Songming county, shows the girl carrying the boy and dropping him into the approximately 5-meter-deep well.
The boy then desperately hangs on to the edge of the well, but the girl pries his fingers off the edge, causing him to fall into the well.
The girl hangs around the well for a while and peers inside to see her playmate inside the well. When a man on a scooter comes by, the girl fails to call his attention to help the boy.
The girl is unmoved by the cries of the boy and soon leaves him in the well and goes away.
Fortunately, other villagers reportedly heard the boy’s calls for help and came to his rescue.
The incident actually happened around 4 pm on March 4th this year, but the footage captured by a nearby CCTV camera has just started trending.
The four-year-old boy, surnamed Yang, was successfully rescued and, apart from catching a cold, did not suffer any major injuries or illnesses.
Authorities stated that the well’s water was around 2 meters deep, and the boy fell approximately 2.65 meters before hitting the water’s surface.
The two children were neighbours and had played together frequently before the incident. As a resolution, the families agreed on a settlement involving compensation in thousands of yuan and some food.
The girl, surnamed Wang, reportedly claimed that she was imitating a plot she had seen on a TV show, according to a village official.
The incident has garnered significant attention on Douyin, the Chinese video-sharing platform, with over 10 million views.
A child psychologist interviewed by The Beijing Times expressed concern about the girl’s actions, characterizing them as aggressive.
The psychologist emphasized the potential impact of exposure to violent images and the lack of family care on children.
Little Girl Throws 4-Year-Old Boy Into A Well In China 😳 pic.twitter.com/dW4XBbnqaI
— Crazy Clips (@crazyclipsonly) April 3, 2023
