'5,000 police' deployed to quell Foxconn brawl

Around 5,000 police were deployed to control a mass brawl among workers at a Foxconn plant in northern China, state media said on Monday after the factory was closed for the day.

The electronics giant’s vast plants in China churn out products for Apple and other tech firms, but it has been come under the spotlight after a series of suicides at its factories in the past two years.

Pictures posted online, the authenticity of which could not be confirmed, showed crowds of workers, a building with shattered windows, and an overturned police car, among other damage.

In a statement Foxconn’s Taiwanese parent company Hon Hai said the incident began “as a personal dispute between several employees” in a privately-managed dormitory for workers at the plant in Taiyuan, in Shanxi province.

It escalated to involve 2,000 workers and was brought under control by police after four hours, the company said, adding 40 people were injured.

But China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said a fight broke out between workers from two different Chinese provinces, “attracting more than 10,000 spectators and triggering chaos”.