Factory Owner Arrested After Fire Kills 28 in 'Shoe Capital'

A fire broke out at a shoe factory in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian on Thursday, killing 28 people, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Chinese President Xi Jinping demanded "an all-out search and rescue effort," urging a swift investigation of the incident and "strictly hold those responsible accountable," the AP reports. The blaze started in a factory at Huiteng shoe company in the city of Jinjiang, the city's fire department said in a statement. The cause of the fire was not immediately known. Jinjiang, known as China's "shoe capital," makes around 20% of the world's sports shoes, reports the BBC.

There were 237 factory workers and two visitors in the building when the fire broke out. Authorities pulled out 213 people, two of whom were pronounced dead after being taken to hospital. Another 26 missing people were later confirmed dead, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Xinhua said the factory's owner and others in charge have been taken into custody and the company's accounts have been frozen.

• Video from CCTV shows the facade of a building of several floors charred black and covered in white smoke. Earlier footage showed fires burning on multiple floors, with the building shrouded in thick, black smoke. The fire started on the first level of a five-floor concrete-structured building, where a workshop and a warehouse were located. The burning materials included shoe components, which are highly flammable and helped the fire spread quickly, according to CCTV.
• A local fire department official said in an interview with the state broadcaster that sole material piled up in stairwells made it much harder for firefighters to reach the flames and put them out.

• Work safety has been a persistent problem in China. In May, an explosion at a fireworks plant in the city of Changsha in the central province of Hunan killed at least 37 people. Weeks later, a coal mine explosion in northern China killed 82 people in northern China, the New York Times reports. In 2024, a fire at a refrigeration facility under construction killed 39 people in the city of Xinyu in the southeastern Jiangxi province.
• Authorities have repeatedly ordered businesses to screen for workplace hazards. According to official data, 18,261 people died in nearly 20,000 workplace accidents across the country in 2025, down from the previous year.