Hong Kong: Workers in a manufacturing facility in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou appear to have fled the factory to avoid COVID-19 curbs, with many travelling on foot for days after an unknown number of employees were quarantined in the facility after a virus outbreak.
Videos circulating on Chinese social media platforms showed people who are allegedly Foxconn workers climbing over fences and carrying their belongings down the road.
In this photo taken from video footage, people with suitcases and bags are seen leaving from a Foxconn compound in Zhengzhou.Credit:AP
The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, is one of the largest factories in China that assembles products for Apple, including its latest iPhone 14 devices.
Not all the videos that showed workers purportedly leaving the facility could be verified. It is unclear if the workers leaving the facility had escaped or if they were allowed to leave.
Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Volunteers from nearby villages put out food and drinks for the Foxconn workers. One such volunteer, who asked to be identified only by his surname Zhang out of privacy concerns, was put in charge of distributing supplies that his village in Xingyang county had prepared. He said that the people shown in a video he uploaded to the short-video platform Douyin were Foxconn workers because they would have to take that road if they were leaving the facility.
The workers’ exodus comes after reports that Foxconn had placed a number of workers under quarantine following a COVID-19 outbreak in the factory.
The Foxconn facility in Zhengzhou can accommodate up to 350,000 factory workers, but it is not clear how many are currently employed by the factory. It is also unclear how many of them have left, or how many were affected by COVID-19 curbs implemented in the factory prior to their departure.