Nine-year-old South Korean girl Alina is recovering and in a stable condition after she suffered serious internal bleeding while on a flight and was rushed to Shanghai in an emergency landing.

Alina's father, a Hong Kong native surnamed Deng, said his daughter was transferred from the intensive care unit to an ordinary ward on Sunday morning.

Doctors at the Children's Hospital of Fudan University told Shanghai Daily that the girl would need further close observation in hospital, but would not reveal more details about her condition.

Her father, however, is happy about his daughter's stabilizing condition. He said the doctors didn't tell him if Alina was fully out of danger, but said she was "improving every day."

Deng said Alina was finally able to take some food, cold rice porridge, on Monday, after doctors effectively controlled the bleeding in her alimentary canal. It's her first meal since being hospitalized last Wednesday.

The girl was rushed to hospital following an emergency landing of the plane at Hongqiao International Airport on Wednesday. She was returning to South Korea with her mother from Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, but was stricken by a sudden internal hemorrhage in the middle of the flight. The immigration authority cleared a special passage for her rescue.

The rescue story deeply touched a South Korean native working in Shanghai.

"All kinds of my prejudice towards China and Chinese has totally vanished by this warm news that shows Chinese humanity. I will remember this news forever ... I love China and Chinese," wrote Hyng Seok Park in a letter to Shanghai Daily.

(Shanghai Daily November 21, 2007)