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.