Updated

A drunken man tossed his 10-month-old baby out a window in China's commercial hub of Shanghai, but the girl survived the eight-story plunge, newspapers reported Friday.

The girl's fall apparently was slowed by tree branches and she landed on soft soil, only breaking her leg, the Shanghai Daily said.

Her father, 26-year-old security guard Yu Dongrui, was in police custody and said the girl had slipped from his arms while playing, the paper said.

Police said the father had been drinking alcohol and had been arguing with his mother-in-law, the newspaper reported. Yu was estranged from his wife, who had asked for a divorce earlier this year and moved to another city, the paper said.

Prior to the fall, the woman's mother had placed the girl in Yu's arms, saying she would no longer take care of her, and told him he was no longer welcome in her home, the paper said.

"Yu took sleeping pills in the morning and started drinking in the afternoon," police officer Zong Yuan was quoted as saying. "The argument with his mother-in-law started when she asked him to leave her house," Zong said.

The child was listed as out of danger after being treated in a local hospital in Shanghai's suburban Jiading district.