By AFP

TAIPEI: Seven people -- five of them firefighters -- died in a fire that broke out late Saturday in an electronics factory in northern Taiwan, the local fire department said.

The inferno raged through the eight-floor building of a circuit board maker, located in an industrial district in Taoyuan City.

Seven firefighters were trapped by large fallen objects as they tried to search for people inside the factory.

They were rescued early Sunday but only two survived. The two others killed were factory workers from Thailand.

Seven other firefighters were injured, five of them suffering burns from an unidentified liquid, according to the fire department.

Traces of diesel and toxic chemicals were also found at the scene, it said.

The disaster follows a string of recent accidents in Taiwanese factories, raising questions about safety standards.

A huge fire broke out at a refinery of the state-run CPC Corporation in January, also in Taoyuan. There were no injuries in that incident.

In December, six Vietnamese workers were killed in another Taoyuan factory blaze that erupted in the middle of the night.

The workers were found to have been staying in an illegal dormitory at the factory, highlighting the often sub-standard living conditions for migrant workers on the island. </s> Taiwan is mourning the deaths of five firefighters and two Thai migrant workers in a weekend blaze at a computer equipment factory.

The fire broke out Saturday night at a plant belonging to Chin Poon Industrial in the city of Taoyuan just south of the capital, Taipei, the official Central News Agency reported.

CNA said the firefighters had lost contact with colleagues outside and became trapped under heavy equipment. Another seven firefighters were injured in the blaze, it said.

It quoted Chin Poon spokesman Hsiao Kung-yen as saying Sunday that the first fire alarm sounded in an area where thin layers of polymer are applied to printed circuit boards.

Large amounts of flammable chemicals apparently fueled the blaze and five firefighters were injured by being splashed with caustic and acidic materials. A total of 189 firefighters and 67 trucks and ambulances were sent to the scene of the fire, CNA said.

The company has been cited on previous occasions for safety violations, the news agency said. </s> BEIJING (AP) — Taiwan is mourning the deaths of five firefighters and two Thai migrant workers in a weekend blaze at a computer equipment factory.

The official Central News Agency said the fire broke out Saturday night at the plant belonging to Chin Poon Industrial in the city of Taoyuan outside the capital, Taipei.

CNA said the firefighters had lost contact with colleagues outside and became trapped under heavy equipment.

It said another seven firefighters were injured in the blaze.

CNA quoted Chin Poon spokesman Hsiao Kung-yen as saying Sunday that the first fire alarm sounded in an area where thin layers of polymer are applied to printed circuit boards. Large amounts of flammable chemicals apparently fueled the blaze. </s> Five firemen, two migrant workers killed in Taiwan fire

A massive inferno raged inside a printed circuit board manufacturer in Taoyuan City Saturday night, killing five firemen and two migrant workers, with two firefighter listed in serious condition, the city's fire department said Sunday, Focus Taiwan reports.

The department said that seven firefighters lost contact with their team after they raced to battle the blaze that broke out at Chin Poon Industrial at around 9 p.m. Saturday to rescue several migrant workers believed to be trapped inside the factory.

However, five of the firemen were found killed later, reportedly from a collapsed structure which trapped them. Two others were rescued with serious injuries.

Lu Tsung-yu, the first of the firemen to be rescued, was found at 00:50 a.m. Sunday, the department said. Lin Wei-hsi, another fireman, was found at around 4 a.m. Sunday. Both of them are hospitalized in serious condition. </s> – No Vietnamese workers have been found injured or dead in a massive fire that broke out at a factory’s dormitory in Pingzhen District, Taoyuan city, Taiwan (China) around 9:00 pm on April 29.According to the Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, the deadly blaze has claimed lives of five local firefighters and some foreign workers, but not including Vietnamese.A total of 161 Vietnamese workers are working at Chin Poon Industrial Co., a rigid printed circuit board producer in Taoyuan. At the time of the fire, most of the workers were at work while some asked for a leave from work to meet friends.Shortly after the accident occurred, the Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei coordinated with the Taoyuan authority and the Vietnamese brides’ association to provide foods and water for the affected workers. The office also asked the labour brokers, who introduced the Vietnamese workers to work in Taiwan, to work with the factory to offer them temporary accommodation.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has directed the office to continue keeping a close watch on the incident and get updates on investigation findings from the local authority. The office was also tasked to cooperate with relevant agencies and companies to help the Vietnamese workers return to soon normal life.-VNA </s> (Bloomberg) -- A blast at a Taiwan-listed company’s factory in China on Sunday killed seven people, the government says, just over a week after an explosion in the same eastern province left scores dead.

The explosion at a metal-processing plant owned by Waffer Technology (Kunshan) Ltd. also injured five people, the government of Kunshan, which is in Jiangsu province and borders Shanghai, said in a post on its Weibo social media account. The blast was caused by a container of scrap metal bursting into flames and setting a workshop ablaze just after 7 a.m., the government said.

Waffer Technology (Kunshan) is a major production base for Taiwan-listed Waffer Technology Corp., according to the latter’s website.

The industrial accident comes 10 days after an explosion at chemical plant in Chenjiagang, Jiangsu province. The official Xinhua News Agency updated the death toll for that incident to 78 on March 25. Police took people into custody over the incident in Chenjiagang, Xinhua reported earlier.

China has been seeking to make workplaces safer after industrial accidents that included a massive explosion in 2015 at a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin that killed 173 people. A blast in 2014 at an auto-parts plant in Suzhou, also in Jiangsu, killed 146 people.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Dandan Li in Beijing at dli395@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Davis at abdavis@bloomberg.net, Philip Glamann, Stanley James
A fire in a circuit board factory in Taoyuan City, Taiwan, kills seven people including five firefighters. It is the city's third major industrial fire this year.