Chinese Shoe Factory Fire Kills At Least 16

Twenty were rescued from blaze in western city of Wenling

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At least sixteen workers were killed in a fire at a shoe factory in eastern China, according to state media and reported by the AP.

State broadcaster CCTV originally reported that the fire broke out at the Dadong factory in Wenling, a city in Zhejiang province, around 250 miles south of Shanghai. According to the report, the fire raged for about three hours before it was contained, and firefighters rescued 20 people.

The deadly factory fire came just a few days after a ten-hour blaze destroyed most of a 1,300-year-old tibetan town in southwestern China. That fire destroyed 240 homes–roughly two-thirds of the settlement—but no casualties were reported as 2,600 people were evacuated from the town.

[AP]