At least seven people died yesterday while three others were in critical condition after a fire at a factory of a major Taiwanese food processor.
The blaze began at a of Lian-Hwa Foods Corp factory in Changhua County at about 6am, trapping 22 employees in the building before a Changhua County Fire Bureau rescue team arrived.
Bureau chief Shih Shun-jen (施順仁) told reporters that the 22 people were pulled out of the building by about 10:10am, but 10 of them did not have any vital signs.
Photo: Chen Kuan-pei, Taipei Times
The 10 were among 15 employees who took refuge in the factory’s refrigerated warehouse, Shih said.
The other seven were found on other floors, he said.
All 22 of the employees were rushed to six hospitals, including Changhua Hospital and Yuanrung Hospital, for emergency treatment, he said.
Changhua Hospital said it received seven of the 22 people, three of whom had no heartbeat and had stopped breathing when they arrived.
Two of the three, a 29-year-old foreign national and a 44-year-old man, were pronounced dead, while the other, a 49-year-old woman, regained vital signs after emergency treatment and was admitted to an intensive care unit, Changhua Hospital said.
Yuanrung Hospital, which received five of the employees, said that three showed no cardiopulmonary functions when they arrived.
Of the three, a 30-year-old migrant worker and a 41-year-old Taiwanese employee were pronounced dead, while a man aged 62 remained intubated and was being treated with hyperbaric oxygen, it said.
Yuanrung Hospital head Chang Ko-shih (張克士) said his hospital had organized a task force that included social workers to provide assistance to the families of the employees.
Two other employees sent to Yuanlin Christian Hospital and one sent to Cho Hospital were pronounced dead.
Lee Wen-chin (李文進), an official with the Ministry of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said the factory had no record of contraventions of safety regulations.
The ministry would work with the fire bureau to determine whether the fire was caused by human error, Lee said, adding that the factory’s operations were suspended pending further investigation.
The fire was extinguished at about 9:12am, said the bureau, which was investigating the cause of the fire, but did not offer any preliminary conclusions.
Lian-Hwa Foods said it suspected that the blaze began when one or more of its machines caught fire, but added that the investigation was still ongoing.
The company said it did not expect the incident to have any material impact on its operations.
It said it reassigned production to other plants to make up for the loss of capacity at the Changhua factory, and indicated that the factory was insured and that the insurance claim process had begun.
Lian-Hwa Foods is known for its Viva brand of nuts, Koloko pea crackers and Moto-Moto Yama seaweed.
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