Grief at the Jilin slaughterhouse: 'The fire was about to swallow me'

Feng Xiufang was skinning the necks of poultry on the processing line early on Monday morning when she heard a supervisor yell out, telling everyone to flee the slaughterhouse.

In the next minute, all the lights went off and Feng saw a fireball and thick smoke burst into the No 2 workshop as she fled through a connecting door into the adjacent refrigerated warehouse and out to safety.

"I don't know how come I'm still alive as I felt like the fire behind me was about to swallow me," she said.

"I probably just got lucky to be working in a section close to the refrigerator door."

Feng, 51, is among the dozens of workers - out of about 300 - who survived the deadly blaze that engulfed the Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry Co slaughterhouse in the town of Mishazi, Jilin province, on Monday. The death toll stood at 119 at midday yesterday, according to an official account.

Many of the other workers had not been as lucky as Feng, she said, because there was too little time for them to make it to the refrigerator door to escape.