Dozens trapped on roof as shoe factory fire rips through Jinjiang

At least a dozen people appeared to be trapped on the roof of a shoe factory in Jinjiang after fire broke out around noon Thursday at Huiteng Shoes, with state television showing crews racing to reach them as smoke and flames spread through the building.

The blaze struck in Jinjiang City, under Quanzhou City in east China’s Fujian Province, in the heart of one of the country’s best-known manufacturing clusters. Jinjiang is widely described as a major footwear and apparel hub and has long been called China’s shoe capital, a label that underscored the economic weight of the factory and the attention now fixed on the fire.

State broadcaster CCTV said some people were trapped on the rooftop and that casualties had been reported, but the exact number of dead and injured was not immediately clear in the early reports. Video released by state media showed the scale of the emergency as rescue crews worked to get close to those stranded above the flames.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said the fire had caused major human losses and ordered officials to devote all efforts to search-and-rescue operations. He also directed them to determine the cause of the accident and hold those responsible strictly accountable, putting the response squarely under the scrutiny of central authorities.

Firefighters and emergency personnel were dispatched to the scene and worked to extinguish the blaze and reach people trapped inside the factory. The response unfolded in a city where footwear production is deeply embedded in the local economy, raising immediate questions about how such a fire took hold in a dense industrial setting and whether safeguards failed before the first alarms sounded.

The Ministry of Emergency Management and China’s State Council were among the national bodies tied to the response as officials moved to contain the fire and account for the workers and others inside the plant. With the casualty count still unsettled in the first reports, the focus remained on rescue, the cause of the fire and the responsibility that follows once the flames are out.