Italy garment plant fire kills 7 Chinese workers

A fire at a factory in central Italy early Sunday killed at least seven Chinese workers and seriously injured two others, local media reported.

The fire occurred at a garment plant in the suburbs of the city of Prato, just north of Florence in central Italy, where there is a large concentration of Chinese businesses which employ at least 30,000 workers, according to Rai state television.

Seven people lost their lives while two others sustained serious burn injuries, ANSA news agency said. A third victim, a woman, was reported to have suffered from smoke inhalation but was not believed to be in peril of life.

The fire broke out around 7 a.m. (0600 GMT) and trapped a dozen of people inside. Local police said some plasterboard cubicles in the factory, which were used for workers' accommodation, collapsed and originated the sparks that lit the fire.

Several workers were inside the plant when the accident happened. Firefighters were called to the scene after a passerby spotted the blaze. A column of dark smoke could be seen also in Prato, according to Florence-based La Nazione newspaper.

"We saw a column of smoke and we rushed to the spot. There were two Chinese, a man and a woman, completely covered in soot. They were screaming. Flames were coming out of the warehouse," a police officer, Leonardo Tuci, was quoted as saying by Florence-based Corriere Fiorentino newspaper.

The flames ran through the factory site within minutes, and just a few workers may have been able to escape, according to media reports. The cubicles' narrow interior made gateway difficult.

A firefighter quoted by ANSA said that presumably there were seven victims, but the death toll could further rise during the night. "We cannot be certain the dead were seven until we have completely cleaned the area of the warehouse," he said late on Sunday.

Local analysts blamed the Italian government for allowing the widespread lack of legality in the area. "It was an announced tragedy, we all knew it would happen one day," a local entrepreneur told Rai.

For the past two decades, Chinese immigrants have played a dominant role in Prato's garment industry. The turnover of their at least 4,000 small companies is estimated at 2 billion euros a year (2.7 billion U.S. dollars), according to a recent study conducted by Tuscany's regional institute for economic planning (IRPET).