The astonishing footage shows a massive excavator nearly crushing several people to death after it slid down a snowy slope and crashed into trees.

Footage recorded in the city of Qingyuan, in Guangdong province, northern China, shows the heavy construction equipment skidding downhill on an ice-covered road.

But while many of the people present at the scene stood aside and recorded the incident on camera, some of the less fortunate passersby made a run for it to save their lives.

Luckily, as shown in the video, the massive piece of machinery was halted by several trees that stood in its way during the incident on Wednesday, December 20.

A day later city authorities said that the excavator was used to clear the snow from the road and said that it lost balance due to the icy weather conditions.

They added that nobody was injured during the incident.