A fire at a shoe factory on 19 October in Yueqing City, Zhejiang Province, killed five workers and injured another five.

Ten workers were in the workshop when the fire started, but according to reports only five escaped.

The fire started around 10:30 p.m. on 19 October (Sunday) and ignited barrels of paint nearby. The whole workshop was then engulfed in flames and several neighboring workshops also caught fire.
It took a reported three hours to put out the fire and find the five bodies.

The five injured workers are now in hospital - one of them in a serious condition.

According to Xinhua, all the victims were rural workers from Anhui Province and Guizhou Province.

21 October 2003