Chinese state media say firefighters and medics have rescued a newborn boy from a sewer pipe below a squat toilet.

The state-run news site Zhejiang News says a tenant heard the baby's cries in the public restroom of a residential building in eastern China's Puijian county Saturday and notified authorities.

Firefighters removed an L-shaped section of the pipe — about 10 centimetres in diameter — and rushed it to a hospital where it was dismantled and the baby was treated.

Video footage of the rescue was broadcast nationally overnight.

Zhejiang News says the child — named Baby No. 59 from the number of his incubator — is safe.

Police are treating the case as an attempted homicide, and are looking for the mother and anyone else involved.