South Korean rescuers search burned factory after a blaze killed 22, mostly Chinese migrants
Seoul (AP): Rescue workers were combing through the charred ruins of a factory building near South Korea's capital to find any more fire victims Tuesday, a day after a devastating blaze likely triggered by exploding lithium batteries killed 22 people, mostly Chinese migrant workers.
More than 100 people were working at the factory in Hwaseong city, just south of Seoul, when the fire tore through it Monday morning. Security cameras showed smoke engulfing the second-floor worksite of the factory, soon after sparks were detected from a site where lithium batteries were stored, fire officials said.
One victim was pronounced dead at a hospital, and fire workers retrieved 21 bodies from the factory one by one later Monday. Eighteen victims were Chinese, two were South Korean and one was Laotian. The nationality of one of the dead was being verified.
Many Chinese people, including ethnic Koreans, have migrated to South Korea to find jobs since China and South Korea established diplomatic ties in 1992.
Like other migrant labourers from Southeast Asian countries, they often work in factories, construction sites and restaurants, engaging in the so-called “difficult, dangerous and dirty” jobs that are shunned by more affluent South Koreans.
Chinese Ambassador Xing Haiming visited the factory site on Monday night and reportedly expressed condolences to the victims. Police were extracting DNA samples from the dead bodies and their potential relatives to confirm their relations, according to fire officials.
One factory worker remains out of contact but his mobile phone signal was detected at the building on Monday afternoon. Eight were injured, two of them in serious condition.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol also visited the factory site Monday. He expressed condolences to the dead people and ordered officials to put in place measures to effectively deal with battery-related fires, according to Yoon's office.
On Tuesday, more than 50 fire officers, aided by two rescue dogs and other equipment, were mobilized to continue searching the burned factory, local fire official Kim Jin-young told a televised briefing. He said partial remains had been discovered but it wasn't immediately known if they belonged to the missing person.
Kim said a separate team of fire, police and other experts were also set to examine the site later Tuesday to investigate what exactly caused the blaze. Labour officials said the government will separately investigate whether any safety issues were involved in the fire. The factory is owned by a battery manufacturer, Aricell.
Most of the dead workers were daily labourers so they were not likely familiar with the building's internal structure, senior fire officer Jo Seon-ho told reporters Monday.
He said the video of the fire site showed they rushed to an area where there was no exit after failing to put out the blaze with fire extinguishers. He said the victims likely inhaled toxic smoke.
Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are ubiquitous in consumer goods from laptops to cellphones. They can overheat if damaged, defective or packaged improperly, leading to fires and explosions and making them a hazard for shipment aboard aircraft.
Monday's blaze is one of the deadliest in South Korea in recent years.
In 2020, a fire at a warehouse being built in Icheon City, south of Seoul, killed 38 construction workers. In 2018, 46 people died after a fire ripped through a small hospital with no sprinkler systems in the southern city of Miryang.
In 2008, 40 workers, 12 of them ethnic Koreans with Chinese nationality, died after a fire and accompanying explosions tore through a refrigerated warehouse in Icheon city.
South Korea has struggled for decades to improve safety standards and change widespread attitudes that regard safety as subservient to economic progress and convenience.
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HC quashes order staying proceedings against Anil Ambani to classify his bank accounts as fraud
Mumbai (PTI): In a setback to industrialist Anil Ambani, the Bombay High Court on Monday quashed a single bench interim order that stayed proceedings initiated against him and Reliance Communications Ltd to classify their bank accounts as fraud.
A division bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Ankhad allowed the appeals filed by three public sector banks and auditor firm BDO India LLP against the December 2025 interim order passed by a single bench of the HC.
The division bench, while quashing the single bench order, termed it "illegal and perverse".
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Ambani's counsels sought the HC to stay its order so that they could approach the Supreme Court, but the request was declined.
The banks last month challenged a December 2025 single-bench order granting interim relief to Ambani and his company. The order had cited violations of mandatory RBI rules and a classic case of banks "waking up from deep slumber" after years.
The single bench order stayed all present and future action by Indian Overseas Bank, IDBI Bank and Bank of Baroda, noting that the action was based on a legally flawed forensic audit and violated the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) mandatory guidelines.
The three banks in their appeal said the forensic audit, which led to accounts being classified as "fraud", was legally valid and based on serious findings of fund siphoning and misutilisation.
This was recorded in the report submitted by the audit firm BDO LLP, they contended.
The banks, in their plea, also said Ambani had raised a technical challenge to the forensic audit before the single bench.
They sought the division bench to quash the single bench's interim order, claiming it was "perverse".
Ambani had challenged before the single bench show-cause notices issued by the Indian Overseas Bank, IDBI and Bank of Baroda, seeking to declare his and Reliance Communications' accounts as fraud accounts.
As an interim relief, he sought a stay of the notices and an injunction against any coercive action on the ground that BDO LLP was not qualified to conduct the forensic audit as its signatory was not a chartered accountant.
BDO LLP was an accounting consultant firm and not an audit firm, Ambani claimed.
The single bench had agreed with Ambani and stayed the action by the banks.
