China Scene: South

Man goes to extremes to draw attention to son's plight

A 45-year-old father buried himself up to his chest in a pit in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on April 21 to draw attention to his need to raise money to pay for his son's high medical expenses.

Hu Xianzhu, a migrant worker from Hunan province earning about 3,000 yuan ($460) a month, learned in February that his younger son, Hu Ping, suffers from uremia, a sign of kidney disease, which costs about 400,000 yuan to treat.