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As the death toll rises from an explosion at Foxconn’s Chengdu plant in South East China, the world’s concern lies with whether or not iPad shipments will be affected.
In a statement this morning, Foxconn said “sadly, a third employee has died from injuries from the May 20 explosion at one of the polishing workshops at our company’s Hongfujin Precision Electronics (Chengdu) Co. Ltd. facility in Chengdu.”
Fifteen other employees were injured in that accident and six of those employees have been treated and released from the hospital.
The firm said it was “working with medical professionals and the local government to ensure that all of the injured employees receive the highest quality medical treatment,” and sent out its condolences to the families of the deceased employees, who Foxconn said were “being given the full support of the company.”
The cause of the fatal accident is currently under investigation by a joint investigation task force led by Chinese government officials and law enforcement authorities, but initial findings point to an explosion of combustible dust in a duct, according to a company press release. The explosion occured in the section of the plant which housed coating lines and stored chemical materials.
Meanwhile, Foxconn says it is taking “all necessary actions to ensure the safety of employees at this and all other production facilities,” now and in the future.
As such, “all operations at the affected workshop remain suspended and production at all other workshops that carry out similar processing functions have also been halted pending the results of the investigation into the cause of the Chengdu accident,” Foxconn said.
The news has sparked panic amongst Apple enthusiasts worried production of the iPad 2 may be affected, meaning the already hard to get hold of tablets may become even rarer.
Some estimates have put the dent in Foxconn’s iPad production at close to 30%, which was the full extent of the manufacturing lines at the newly opened plant. The firm’s bigger facility in Shenzen continues to manufacture the lion’s share of the coveted Apple product.
“All other production operations in our facilities in China continue operating normally,” confirmed Foxconn.
The firm had hoped to pump out some four to five million devices a month in Q2, up from two million a month in the first quarter, with a goal of shipping some 10 million devices in the second half of the year.
