分类： society

A devastating industrial fire has claimed 28 lives at a footwear manufacturing facility in Jinjiang, a southeastern Chinese city renowned as the nation’s shoe production hub, local emergency authorities confirmed this Thursday. The outbreak of the blaze at the Huiteng Shoe Company plant triggered an immediate emergency response, after President Xi Jinping called for a comprehensive search and rescue operation, alongside a rapid, transparent probe into the incident and strict legal accountability for anyone found responsible.

According to official state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), a total of 239 people — 237 on-site workers and two external visitors — were inside the multi-story factory compound when the fire ignited. Emergency teams successfully evacuated or rescued 211 people from the burning structure, though 28 people could not be saved in time. Two of the fatalities occurred after injured victims were transferred to local hospitals for emergency treatment.

As of the latest official update, the exact root cause of the fire has not yet been released to the public. State-run Xinhua News Agency confirmed that the factory’s owner and all senior facility managers have been taken into police custody, and all corporate accounts linked to the company have been frozen by regulatory authorities to support the ongoing investigation.

Graphic footage released by CCTV captures the aftermath of the disaster: the entire exterior of the factory building is charred jet-black, with thin plumes of white smoke still rising from the structure hours after the blaze was contained. Earlier on-site footage shot by first responders shows intense flames raging across multiple floors of the facility, with thick toxic black smoke completely shrouding the building and obscuring visibility for early response teams.

Jinjiang, the manufacturing center where the incident occurred, holds the official designation of China’s “shoe capital”, hosting hundreds of domestic and international footwear brands and accounting for a large share of China’s total shoe exports to global markets. Local authorities have not yet announced whether any safety violations were identified at the facility prior to the fire.

A devastating fire at a footwear manufacturing facility in Jinjiang, a major southeastern Chinese industrial hub known as the country’s shoe capital, has left at least 28 people dead, according to official state media reports. The inferno broke out shortly before noon local time on Thursday at the Huiteng Footwear factory, located in Fujian Province, sending massive plumes of thick black smoke billowing into the sky above the multi-story building. Viral footage captured by witnesses and shared by state news agency Xinhua shows multiple people trapped on the factory’s roof, waiting for rescue as flames spread through the structure below.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Chinese President Xi Jinping acknowledged the blaze had resulted in ‘major casualties’ and issued a directive stating that all parties responsible for the incident must be held strictly accountable. Hundreds of emergency rescue personnel were quickly deployed to the scene, and first responders successfully evacuated more than 200 people from surrounding and adjacent structures to safety. As of the latest official updates, the total number of people injured in the fire remains unconfirmed.

Preliminary investigations into the cause of the blaze point to an origin on the factory’s ground floor, where large quantities of flammable materials used in shoe production were stored. In a swift preliminary action, authorities have detained multiple senior staff associated with the factory’s ownership and ordered the freezing of the company’s bank accounts as they work to untangle the circumstances of the disaster.

Jinjiang holds an outsize role in global footwear production: the city is estimated to manufacture roughly 20 percent of all athletic shoes sold worldwide, making it a key node in the global supply chain for sportswear. This latest industrial disaster comes nearly eight months after China launched a national campaign to improve fire safety across high-risk buildings. The nationwide safety push was initiated in November last year, after a catastrophic blaze tore through multiple residential high-rises in Hong Kong that killed 168 people, sparking widespread public outcry over fire safety standards.

On Thursday, Chinese authorities in the southern region of Guangxi released a devastating update: deadly flooding spawned by Tropical Storm Maysak has claimed 39 lives, even as emergency crews ramp up preparedness for an approaching typhoon forecast to make landfall along China’s eastern coast in the coming days.

Of the 39 fatalities, 26 occurred in Hengzhou, a city under the administrative jurisdiction of Nanning. Nanning’s vice mayor Ding Wei confirmed during an official press briefing that the deaths came after partial collapse of a local reservoir dam unleashed a wall of torrential water that swept through populated areas of the city. Nine additional people remain unaccounted for across Guangxi, underscoring the widespread destruction left by the storm.

Tropical Storm Maysak made landfall over the region last Saturday, dropping unprecedented volumes of rain that overwhelmed water infrastructure and trapped hundreds of residents in their homes and other structures for days. The storm’s death toll has risen sharply from the previously reported six fatalities released to the public on Tuesday.

China’s National Meteorological Center confirmed that rainfall far exceeded initial projections, with many parts of southern Guangxi recording cumulative totals between 10 and 40 centimeters (4 to 16 inches). In the hardest-hit zones, precipitation topped 90 centimeters (35 inches) over just a few days.

As rescue operations continue in flood-ravaged Guangxi, the country is bracing for a second weather event: Typhoon Bavi, currently churning in open waters off the Chinese coast. Forecasters project the typhoon will track just north of Taiwan, dumping heavy rain on the island home to 23 million people, before making landfall in either China’s Zhejiang or Fujian province this Saturday.

Emergency teams were still working Thursday to extract more than 10,000 trapped students and teachers from a group of schools in Guigang, a city located northeast of Hengzhou. Beyond human casualties and displacement, the rising floodwaters have also wreaked havoc on local animal populations and facilities. A Guigang-based zoo reported that more than 100 animals are missing after floodwaters swept through their enclosures, including two zebras, four porcupines, and dozens of tropical bird species. In Hengzhou, dozens of farm-raised snakes escaped into floodwaters, prompting local officials to restock large quantities of antivenom and issue public safety guidance for residents who may encounter displaced reptiles.

Further northwest in Binyang County, an independent animal shelter operator has worked around the clock for days to rescue roughly 200 cats and dozens of dogs from inundated facilities. The operator ferried dogs to safety two at a time through churning, powerful flood currents, while cats climbed to overhead rafters to avoid rising waters as they waited for rescue.

Authorities have mobilized a massive regional relief and rescue operation to reach stranded residents, deploying drones for search and more than 5,700 boats to navigate flooded areas. Rescue crews have navigated hazardous conditions, fighting strong currents and navigating piles of debris to reach cut-off communities. So far, roughly 130,000 residents have been evacuated to safe, dry shelter.

Ding noted that floodwaters across most of Guangxi are now receding, but forecast models call for additional rainfall in some parts of the region over the next 48 hours. Cleanup and recovery efforts are already underway in affected areas: work crews have been deployed to clear mud and debris from public and residential spaces, and carry out disinfection operations across multiple hard-hit towns in Hengzhou. Road repair work is ongoing across the region, and power service has already been restored to more than 60,000 households that lost electricity during the flooding.

Associated Press video producers Wayne Zhang and Olivia Zhang contributed reporting to this article.