Key facts
- A fire aboard a foreign cargo ship undergoing repairs at a shipyard in eastern China killed 25 people on Thursday.
- The blaze broke out at roughly 11:15 a.m. local time during maintenance work.
- President Xi Jinping called for urgent search and rescue and an investigation into the incident.
A fire aboard a foreign cargo ship undergoing repairs at a shipyard in eastern China killed 25 people on Thursday, marking one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the country’s maritime sector in recent years. The blaze broke out at roughly 11:15 a.m. local time during maintenance work at a facility owned by China State Shipbuilding Corporation Ltd.’s Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. President Xi Jinping called for urgent search and rescue and an investigation into the incident.