A one-month-old baby has been rescued from a shallow grave almost eight days after he was buried alive.
In what can only be described as a miracle, the baby is said to have survived on the moisture seeping through the sides of the cardboard box from rainwater.
The baby, a boy, was placed in a box, surrounded by blankets, and buried five centimetres into the earth in a forest outside the Tiandong County in China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
The shallow grave where the miracle baby survived for nearly eight days.
The baby’s muffled cries were heard by a woman, Lu Fenglian, who was in the area gathering herbs. After hearing the cries, the woman ran to a nearby temple to notify the monks who lived there. One of the monks, Zhao Shimin, 75, called the police, who eventually dug up the box containing the baby.
The little boy is believed to have been abandoned because of his cleft lip.
Chinese police were able to track down the parents, who told them that their relatives had helped them abandon the baby in a graveyard and bury it.
Locals in the parents’ village were told the baby had died soon after birth, and therefore didn’t inquire further.
“They said he had been buried, we never knew they meant alive,” said one local.
The parents, as well as the grandmother, have been arrested and taken into custody, whilst the boy remains in a stable condition in hospital.
