At least 28 dead as a shoe factory catches fire in China

BarcelonaA large fire in a shoe factory in the city of Jinjiang, in southeastern China, has left at least 28 dead, according to the Chinese news agency Xinhua. The country's emergency teams have been deployed around the building to try to extinguish the flames and rescue several people who were trapped inside and on the roof of the building.

The magnitude of the incident, the cause of which is still unknown, is such that Xi Jinping himself has assured that "a large number of victims" are known and has urged the relevant authorities to open a rapid investigation that allows for accountability of those responsible. Hours later, the Xinhua agency reported that the company's managers and "other relevant personnel" have been arrested, and that the company's bank accounts are frozen.

The fire broke out around noon (local time) on the ground floor of the building, and is believed to have quickly spread to the rest of the factory, belonging to the company Huiteng Shoe Industry Co, which uses a highly flammable material in shoe manufacturing. At that time there were 239 people in the factory, of whom 213 were able to be evacuated. Two of them died after being transferred to the hospital. The remaining 26 also died after being declared missing at the scene.

Despite the large deployment of firefighters, who sent 183 personnel and 35 trucks to the factory, the presence of numerous obstacles on the stairs made access difficult for hours.

Images from the scene shared by local television stations show flames coming out of the windows of all floors of the factory and a large black plume of smoke rising from the building. On the roof, about a dozen trapped people can be seen trying to position themselves under the water from the firefighters' hoses - which are spraying them from below - to prevent the flames from burning them.

The city of Jinjiang, in Fujian province, is one of the world's leading footwear manufacturing centers, specializing in the production of sports shoes. According to official data, the thousands of companies in the city manufactured more than 1.2 billion pairs of shoes in 2024, representing 20% of global production.