ALBAWABA - A shoe factory caught on fire in southeastern China, in the province of Fujian. Firefighters are working to extinguish the massive fire which has already taken lives.
The fire broke out at noon on Thursday; some people were left trapped on the rooftop of the factory after the fire spread from the ground floor up.
Videos show flames and thick black smoke engulfing the factory and the sky above it as firefighting efforts are still underway to extinguish the blaze. According to reports, the fire department dispatched 183 people and 35 cars to the site.
Preliminary investigations uncovered that the fire started on the ground floor of the factory before spreading up the multi-story structure; the shoe-making materials in the factory were very highly flammable and had contributed to the unprecedented growth of the blaze, as well as releasing an eye-watering pungent scent that smothered the scene.
Jinjiang, the city where the fire is burning in Fujian, is a shoe manufacturing hub, with it being called the ‘shoe capital’ of China. Thousands of companies made over 1.2 billion shoes in 2024, 20 percent of the global output.
