Was Foxconn's Main Factory destroyed?

[5105973]

By now a lot of us have heard that a landslide has devastated an industrial park and factories in Shenzhen, China. This article in USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/12/20/china-landslide/77680738/ mentions that the area affected was home to factories that make among many other things, cell phones. Could one of the factories that was destroyed in an industrial park be Foxconn's base factory?

I wasn't able to find out and there doesn't seem to be any mention of the tragedy on Foxconn's site or on Apple's at the time I looked.

Dormitories were buried. I read one worker's account in a different news article that his entire family may have been buried in one of the destroyed buildings. He's talking about his parents, wife, son and a sister-in-law and another child. This is tragic. I hope all of the people reported missing are recovered alive and well.

Update: according to an article in WSJ, Foxconn is not one of the factories listed as being damaged.

 

[duction]

Don't worry, the stores have enough stock for you for xmas so they won't price hike.

 

[Newtons Apple]

I think we should wait and get confirmation before we "write off" the Apple facility.

 

[5105973]

Don't worry, the stores have enough stock for you for xmas so they won't price hike.

Don't be silly. There are missing and possibly dead people in this. I don't give a care if it affects my Christmas shopping or not, and I'm surprised anyone would infer from my post that that is my concern at all, let alone my main concern. Though in this cynical age I suppose I should have anticipated it. And I suppose it was crass and asinine for me to mention the possible impact to Apple. I really didn't mean it that way.



I am just wondering happened to Foxconn, particularly. It was a huge campus and it wasn't just a factory. It was a place of residence for many workers. We talk about this factory all the time here on this forum. We talk about the workers there and their schedules and Apple's history with them. We talk about our phones being built there. It's just quite a shock to hear of something like this happening in that city and possibly to the factory and workers we've all heard so much about and who have touched our lives in this peripheral way.

 

[5105973]

I think we should wait and get confirmation before we "write off" the Apple facility.

Definitely. I'm not trying to say it was destroyed. I am wondering if it was. The news all repeat the same very basic facts hours after the landslide. The scope of this landslide seems pretty massive and it may be some time before they are able to determine more. At least a handful of people have been accounted for since this morning. That's something anyway.

 

[digitalcuriosity]

I had not even read or heard about this happening.
I do hope many were quick to get out before the building were covered.
Also feel very bad for the people and their families, who were killed or are now missing.

 

[kupkakez]

I hadn't yet heard of this. This is awful.

 

[5105973]

Moderators, thank you for moving this to the appropriate spot!

I'll update if I hear anything else of note.

I haven't checked since this morning and early afternoon. I'm wondering if Apple has or will make any acknowledgement on their site of this tragedy since Shenzhen is an important city to their company.

 

[gnasher729]

Could one of the factories that was destroyed in an industrial park be Foxconn's base factory?

I wasn't able to find out and there doesn't seem to be any mention of the tragedy on Foxconn's site or on Apple's at the time I looked.

Common sense is that if Apple was involved, the headline wouldn't be "landslide destroys factories in Shenzhen" but "landslide destroys Apple factory". Common sense is also that a landslide covering 10,000 square meters hasn't destroyed "Foxconn's main factory". Foxconn has over a million employees. You can't fit a million employees into 10,000 square meters. That's 100 per square meter.

Now what you need to explain to me is why it would make any difference who these people were working for? Many people are dead, they wouldn't be any more dead or any less dead if they worked for Apple. But many people die every day. About 200,000. It's bad luck for them, but the world moves on.

 

[5105973]

Common sense is that if Apple was involved, the headline wouldn't be "landslide destroys factories in Shenzhen" but "landslide destroys Apple factory". Common sense is also that a landslide covering 10,000 square meters hasn't destroyed "Foxconn's main factory". Foxconn has over a million employees. You can't fit a million employees into 10,000 square meters. That's 100 per square meter.

Now what you need to explain to me is why it would make any difference who these people were working for? Many people are dead, they wouldn't be any more dead or any less dead if they worked for Apple. But many people die every day. About 200,000. It's bad luck for them, but the world moves on.

The article I linked to in my main post stated 100,000 square meters were affected. Initial reports indicated factories were heavily damaged or destroyed:
"The 33 damaged or collapsed buildings included 14 factories, two office buildings, one cafeteria, three dormitories and 13 sheds or workshops, Shenzhen Deputy Mayor Liu Qingsheng said at a news conference."

Foxconn is not an Apple factory. Apple is one of their customers. Initial reports mentioned the area affected as containing factories that made parts for cell phone companies. So I inquired if Foxconn was affected. We have forum members who live and work in China and who might know more than I could find out from scant news blurbs on the other side of the world. My post doesn't weigh Apple employee lives vs. lives of any other people. I was just asking for additional information.

I do not live in China and am not well acquainted with that region. I did not find a map of the affected area that would have shown me where Foxconn was in relation to the landslide. I'm not "GrumpyMom, ace investigative reporter". I'm GrumpyMom, a member of a forum that discusses Apple products and Foxconn because they assemble iPhones. Therefore if Foxconn was affected in this particular disaster, then this disaster is relevant to this forum.

It is what it is, the thread/original post, I mean. If you have something constructive and informative to add, by all means, you're welcome to do it.

I've already explained why I made this post so I don't NEED to explain anything to anybody. What I NEED to do is eat my lunch and read posts from people who don't act like someone pooped in their Cheerios.

 

[Beachguy]

Do we know what other factories are imperiled?

 

[5105973]

Do we know what other factories are imperiled?

I initially found a very short list of the factories that were damaged, which is what I based my update on in the original post. But I've not been able to find the list again to link here to answer your question.

I have seen conflicting reports about how large the affected area is.