Korean Lithium Battery Factory Fire: Why Are Most of the Dead Chinese Workers

On June 24, 2024, a fire broke out at a battery manufacturing factory in Huacheng, Gyeonggi do, South Korea. This sudden disaster resulted in serious consequences.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the total construction area of a three story reinforced concrete building is approximately 2300 square meters. Within 15 seconds of the fire, white smoke quickly spread throughout the entire work space. The rapid spread of the fire prevented the on-site staff from using fire extinguishers to extinguish it, but they were unable to successfully prevent the further development of the fire.

After the accident, search and rescue personnel found multiple bodies at the scene. However, it is heartbreaking that among the 23 workers who died in the accident, 12 were women and 5 were men from China, ranging in age from 23 to 48. This disaster has aroused widespread attention to foreign workers from China and other places.

As the population continues to decrease, the number of foreign workers in South Korea is rapidly increasing. These people are at the bottom of the labor market, engaged in so-called "3D" jobs that Koreans do not want to do, which are dirty, difficult, and dangerous jobs. It is puzzling why there were so many deaths among Chinese workers in this fire?

Firstly, as mentioned earlier, this battery factory employs a large number of foreign workers, including Chinese citizens. These workers are engaged in more dangerous work in the factory, such as handling and stacking battery products. When a fire occurs, they may be at work, increasing the risk of injury and death. Secondly, the occurrence of fire accidents has also exposed the problems that factories have in terms of safety management. It is understood that before the fire occurred, there was a large amount of finished lithium batteries stored inside the factory, and these batteries themselves had a significant risk of explosion during the manufacturing process. However, the factory seems to have failed to take effective measures in storage, management, and prevention to reduce this risk. At the same time, the emergency evacuation situation during a fire and the fire safety training for employees also affect the efficiency and safety of their evacuation.

It is worth noting that the occurrence of this fire incident not only brought great grief to the families of the victims, but also aroused people's attention to the protection of the rights and interests of foreign workers. In addition, this incident does remind us that in today's increasingly globalized world, how to protect the rights and safety of foreign workers has become a social issue that cannot be ignored.

In response to this incident, relevant departments should conduct in-depth investigations, identify the true cause of the fire, and take practical and effective measures to prevent similar incidents from happening again. In addition, for foreign workers working in foreign countries, governments and enterprises of various countries should strengthen cooperation to ensure the safety and health of foreign workers in the workplace. This includes strengthening safety management measures, improving employee awareness and training on fire safety, ensuring unobstructed emergency evacuation routes, and jointly safeguarding their rights.

In short, we should attach great importance and attention to any form of infringement of labor rights and threats to life safety. The occurrence of a fire accident at a lithium battery factory in South Korea is heartbreaking, while the deaths of multiple Chinese workers are even more thought-provoking. We should learn from the incident, strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of foreign workers, and supervise work safety to ensure that they can work and live safely and healthily in foreign countries.