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CHINA-HUAWEI-FIRE
Three dead in fire at Huawei campus in southern China
BEIJING, Sept 26, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Three people have been found dead after
a huge fire broke out at an unfinished research facility belonging to tech
giant Huawei in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan, according to local
authorities.
The government said it had launched an investigation after Friday’s blaze
at the building under construction in the Songshan Lake industrial
development zone sent massive plumes of smoke into the sky.
The fire had started at a building where Huawei is developing a research
base, the city government said, initially adding that all construction
workers had been evacuated.
However in a statement later Friday, the government said a “thorough
search by firefighters afterwards found three people dead inside the
building”.
They were identified as employees of the industrial park management
company, the government said.
The blaze was extinguished after 140 firefighters were called in to tackle
the inferno, the local fire brigade said in a separate statement.
Footage broadcast by state media channel CCTV showed dark clouds of smoke
billowing out of a blue and white building.
Pictures on social media overnight from the state broadcaster showed the
blackened building surrounded by fire engines.
Huawei said the building was a “steel structure, and has not yet been put
to use”, in a statement on the city administration’s official social media
account.
Huawei’s main office campus is in the southern city of Shenzhen, but it
has a large sprawling office complex in nearby Dongguan.
BSS/AFP/SSS/0829 hrs