BEIJING - Dramatic and graphic video emerged over the weekend from China showing a newborn baby boy being rescued from a sewage pipe.

The 5-pound infant was discovered by residents in Jinhua, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, when they heard cries coming out of a fourth floor squat toilet in a local apartment building.

When the firefighters arrived on the scene they discovered a two-day old baby lodged in the piping below the toilet. After attempts to pull the baby out of the toilet failed, the rescuers resorted to sawing off a whole section of piping containing the baby and brought it to the neighboring hospital.

The video shows firefighters and doctors taking apart the sewer pipe piece by piece under the newborn was finally revealed from inside. State media reports said that the boy's umbilical cord and placenta was still attached at the time.

"Fortunately the baby survived. But the person [who abandoned him] is still suspected of attempted murder," an unidentified police officer told the state media on Hangzhou.com.cn. Police were looking for the parents of the baby boy.

The incident has conjured up intense emotions on Chinese social media especially after the news this weekend of separate newborn discovered in a dumpster in Hebei province. That newborn did not survive.

Posting on China's twitter-like Sina Weibo user @bhdrswxjs wrote: "This should be sentenced to death, they are killing their own baby. This is not the only abandoned baby case I saw in the past ten days, one threw in dumpster and died; the other one was fleshed into toilet, those are not actions human beings should do."

Netizen @Anandeshouxin added: "This little boy survived, he will do great in the future. The parents will never have a good life. I don't even know how to curse them when seeing this shocking news."

In March China's Ministry of Civil Affairs released data indicating there are 9,394 orphans and abandoned babies across China being cared for by non-government affiliated agencies. This figure obviously does not include the babies who did not make it.

The Chinese-language newsweekly MinSheng reported last year that 100,000 babies are estimated to have been abandoned each year in China. That's over 250 babies abandoned ever day across this country.

Reuters photo.