beijing a retired chinese man has been granted a patent for his innovative design of a bed that can automatically turn into a strongbox and help people survive an earthquake the state media reported todaythe design which uses modular furniture including cupboards on each end of the bed and a highload bearing board can be used for normal sleep and storagein the event of an earthquake the components automatically combine to form a strongbox that encases its user china daily quoted its 66yearold inventor wang wenxi as sayingthe necessities for survival such as drinking water canned food a megaphone a hammer and other equipment can be stored in the cupboards in advance they can help people survive for several days before being rescued wang saidi experienced the xingtai and tangshan earthquakes giving me more understanding of such natural disasters the retired 66yearold saidchina is frequently hit by earthquakes the wenchuan and yushu earthquakes caused heavy casualties so i thought the most serious thing i could do was to invent something to reduce the toll in lives wang saidnearly 70000 people died in southwest chinas wenchuan county in sichuan province in may 2008 when an earthquake with a magnitude of 8 hit the region similarly some 2700 people perished when a 69magnitude earthquake devastated yushu an ethnically tibetan region of northwestern qinghai province in april this yearsince wang retired from a local institute of industrial arts he has showed keen interest in invention and creationi think my lifesaving bed is useful especially suitable for brickandconcrete lowrise buildings and bungalows wang saidwang now has six patented inventions including an automatic welding mask an emergency brake for vehicles and crash buffer for cars