The tiny boy survived his ordeal and was discovered lying on his back in a shallow pool of water when emergency services lifted the cover off the drain
A newborn baby flushed down the toilet by his mother was rescued after a passer-by heard his cries from a sewer.
The tiny boy, nicknamed Xiaoxiao, has proved to be a Christmas miracle after he survived the ordeal.
Rescuers took the cover off the sewer in China’s Shaanxi Province to reveal the newborn lying on his back in a small pool of water.
Suide County fire department squad leader Li Zhi said: "It was really a race against time because somebody could have flushed something down the sewer again at any stage, or the baby might have turned over and ended up face first in the filthy water and drowned.
"But we didn't want to smash the pipe because we thought that might also hurt or even kill the baby. So we had to use a mixture of tools in order to ease him towards the opening and then pull him out.
"He still had the umbilical cord attached and it had obviously been clumsily cut."
