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Showing posts with label Wenling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wenling. Show all posts

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Fire at Chinese shoe factory kills 16: Xinhua

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.reuters.com

BEIJING (Reuters) - A fire at a shoe factory in eastern China killed 16 people and injured five, state media reported, the latest disaster to highlight China's poor workplace safety record.

The fire broke out at the factory in Wenling in the wealthy coastal province of Zhejiang on Tuesday, the official Xinhua news agency said.

More than 20 people were rescued and the injured were all in stable condition in hospital, it said. The cause of the fire was being investigated.

China, the world's second-largest economy, has a bad record on workplace safety. Fire exits in factories, office buildings and shops are often locked to prevent workers taking time off or stealing, or even blocked completely.

A fire at a poultry slaughterhouse in the northeastern province of Jilin in June 2013 killed 120 people. That blaze was blamed on poor management, lack of government oversight and locked or blocked exits.

Many industrial accidents happen in the huge coal mining industry, in which hundreds die every year from explosions, mine collapses and floods.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Paul Tait)

Fire Kills 16 at Factory Making Shoes for Export

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com

A fire tore through a shoe factory in eastern China, killing at least 16 people, and the state media said that the police on Wednesday took into custody the owners of the plant, which makes shoes for export around the world.

The blaze at the plant in Wenling was the latest in a series of deadly industrial accidents in China, casting attention on the poor occupational safety situation in the country. Last summer, 120 people were killed in a fire at a poultry slaughterhouse in northeastern China, in which blocked exits were cited as a cause of the high number of deaths.

Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said that the police took into custody Lin Jianfeng, the legal representative of the plant, and Lin Zhenjian, a shareholder of Taizhou Dadong Shoes Company. Taizhou Dadong exports shoes to five continents and employs 4,580 workers, who produce 50,000 pairs of shoes a day, according to a profile of the company.

Leading Western clothing retailers have come under increased scrutiny for workplace conditions at Asian plants that supply their products, particularly after the collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh last year killed 1,100 workers. It could not be determined which...


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