Daxing Fire Investigation: Cost Price Of Low End Garment Industry Chain

Around 1:10 in the morning of April 25th, a four storey building in the three village of South Street in Daxing District, Beijing.

One night's pain

The whole South Street is the largest in Beijing.

From the east entrance of South Xiao Jie, from east to west, one village, two villages and three villages.

The buildings on both sides are also changing with the deepening: the streets are getting narrower and smaller, and the large residential areas are missing. There are more and more ugliness buildings with three or four floors, bare concrete primaries and square blocks.

The streets are full of young people who are ravaged by accents. After the fire, all the clothes processing factories that rented houses were asked to stop working and wait for inspection. There was a rare holiday on South Street.

Follow the crowd, you can find the scene of the fire. At the end of the South Street is the apron of Nanyuan airport. From the main road to the north side of the alley and then to the end, we can see the four storey buildings surrounded by the warning line.

The 4 leaning buildings that are together depend on each other for only about one fist. They have an image named "handshake floor", with two buildings on the West for 4 floors, and two on the East for 3 floors.

There are no signs of excessive fire on the walls above two floors. Only from a dark rolling door and two broken windows can be judged that the second houses in the East are Zhang Jun's houses, and the gate is a winding electric wire and a telegraph pole with three or four meter boxes.

"Fortunately, there was no wind that night, and I saw that the flames were jumping up and down. The most worrying thing was to burn the wires, and the electricity was good, and electricity was even more dangerous for people."

Li Cuiyun, a supermarket boss, remembers the situation at that time with a lingering fear.

The supermarket of Li Jia is only ten meters away from the small building on fire.

"My husband ran from the outside into the shop and said he was burning when he saw the smoke."

Across the alley, He Dongsheng, who lives directly opposite Zhang Jun's house, looks even more clearly. "My tenant has told me about the old customs, and then we run to the gate and kick the shutter door vigorously to wake up the people inside."

He Dongsheng said that the night was dark and only the flames could be seen. The strong smoke was coming out of the building, and the people in the building seemed to wake up. There were calls for help, but the shutter door was locked and he felt helpless.

The shutter door is locked up by 11 people in a factory floor and two employees' dormitories. "Every night the boss will put down the shutter door himself, and the two floor is also the dormitory of the staff, and the three or four floor will rent to the retail investors. They will have to go to another staircase".

The appearance of a 4 story building with a square appearance is a "back" structure. The center of one to four floors is a patio.

Chen Dingke, a tenant living on the four floor, was awakened by thick smoke. He said that when he was about to open the door and run away, he found that the door could not be opened.

"Smoke comes up the patio, but the roof is sealed, so the four floor of the smoke is very big."

Chen Dingke told me that in order to prevent falling objects above the floor, there is a layer of cloth hanging on the patio of each floor.

This layer of cloth is usually stacked with many cloth factories, so the fire will soon burn up to the four floor.

The building with a floor area of 700 square meters is mainly built as a garment factory building except for one floor, with the remaining 8 rooms separated from each floor, with 15 people on each floor and public toilets.

Chen Dingke said that he could not get out of the door. He was eager to kick the wall. He did not expect to kick open a big hole with several feet: "the original wall is colored steel plate, and a thin layer of putty was pasted outside, before it really did not see it."

As a last resort, Chen Dingke had to jump from the four floor to escape, but fortunately the injury was not serious.

Because my brother lived on the three floor, Liu Xin knew quite well about the pattern in the building. He told the author: "those stairs are straight up and down, the space in the building is very narrow, and there is an iron ladder on the four floor, but it is very high. Women usually can't climb up, and it is even harder to climb out of sight without seeing anything."

Usually, the barbed wire fence has turned the fire field into a cage.

The owner of the clothing factory, Gao Mou, also lives on the two floor, and the two floor residents begin to smash the glass and destroy the barbed wire.

"At that time six or seven people came out of it, and some were carrying children."

According to the neighbors who were there, He Dongsheng, who could not open a rolling shutter door, ran back to gather his hands and run back. The shutter door had been opened. "The fire came out from the door. The boss was holding a hand-held fire extinguisher and spraying it in the door."

At 1:35, 27 fire engines such as Gao Mi store and Dahongmen fire squadron rushed to the South Street. But the fire engines could only queue up in the street, and could not get to the fire building.

"The road is narrow, and both sides are sand and stone materials that cover the house. Let alone fire engines. Our private cars will not take this alley."

He Dongsheng said to the author.

What I saw was that the obstacles in the hutongs had been cleared, and the firefighters on the same night could only carry equipment and walk close to the scene, and a small fire engine reluctantly entered.

"We can't find a fire hydrant nearby. We can only use the car to extinguish the fire, and the cart to provide water behind the fire."

According to the rescue workers at the scene, the interlayer of colored steel plates was filled with polystyrene material, which was cheap, but not fireproof. It was easy to burn when exposed to open fire, and the gas released was poisonous.

"One layer and four layers of dead people are the most, one is burned to death, the four is smoked."

Li Cuiyun said, "I heard that Gao's wife also lived on the same floor."

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Low cost industry chain

"He feels good."

Only know that the clothing factory boss surnamed Gao, Li Cuiyun and He Dongsheng can not name him, like many nearby people, meeting greeting, but not familiar.

"He is less than 40 years old, and Sichuan accent, looking very capable, with his wife to open a garment factory here for a year."

The garment processing plant named Yu Yun has only a dozen or so workers. It is a small role in more than 200 garment factories in the three villages of Nan Xiao street, because he and the neighbours nearby can only rent villagers' houses and do some processing businesses.

Recently, the boss seems to be in a good mood.

According to nearby neighbors, a few days before the accident, he had just entered a batch of patches that needed to be processed.

On the south side of the factory floor, there are twenty or thirty processing machines, and the north side is the staff quarters.

After field investigation, the public security department decided that the battery power line of the electric tricycle, which was placed in the workshop, was short circuited, igniting the cloth stacked in the workshop.

"The shutter door faces south, the north side does not have the outlet, even if the dormitory person wakes up, facing" the firewall "also cannot get away.

"In Fujian, factories and dormitories must not be arranged so."

Lin Wen, who was less than 30 years old, worked as a lathe worker in another garment factory nearby. He told me that the clothing factory usually asked for an end to the naked flame because its clothing was a combustible material.

"Regular manufacturers will separate the factory buildings from the dormitories, so that even if there is an accident, the goods will not be killed.

Without conditions, at least the factory will be upstairs and people will live downstairs, and the situation will be much better.

Considering the cost of capital and manpower, the mode of building a factory and living upstairs is undoubtedly the most cost-effective, and the sacrifice is fire safety.

In the many garment factories visited by the author, we can see the banners on the door of the workshop, which are "no smoking, a fine of 50 yuan for violators," and some hand-held fire extinguishers will be installed in the factory. "But in terms of knowledge and attitude, in fact, no matter big factories or small factories, fire safety is perfunctory."

Wang Shiming, the official clothing factory owner of more than 100 workers in the three village of Nan Xiao street, told the author.

Wang Shiming's clothing factory has been operating in the three village of Nan Xiao street for six or seven years. Unlike the high owner's unlicensed rented house, Wang Shiming is a factory directly rented to three village committees.

From the distribution map of the village defense office wall, we can see that the south side of the street is mainly the villagers' homestead, and the south side is the collective land in the village.

"The rent is 300 thousand yuan a year, one year, one time."

The village business public column shows that the collective business income of the village in 2010 was about 8000000 yuan.

Although the South Street belongs to the old town of Daxing District, it is located at the northern edge of Daxing District, and it is north of Fengtai District. It is only four or five stops away from Muxiyuan and Dahongmen.

According to the statistics of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Commerce, the average throughput of Japanese goods in Dahongmen is more than 2000 tons, and the annual turnover accounts for 54.5% of the volume of similar commodities in Beijing. It is the largest clothing distribution center in the north of the Yangtze River.

Wang Shiming's main factory is men's clothing, sold directly to Harbin, and more small clothing factories rely on Dahongmen merchants or large garment factories to make endless orders to make money, and the finished products can be quickly distributed to the whole country through Dahongmen.

Although some formal clothing factories have settled in South small street around 2004, the large-scale entry of such unlicensed workshops like Yu Yun garment factory is only three or four years old.

"It is all because in 2007, the demolition and pformation of the Dahongmen area was basically completed. The small production and processing points of" Zhejiang village "and the workers really had no place to stay, so they basically moved over.

He Dongsheng recalls.

Design, print, garment, OEM, equipment, logistics...

In the streets of Nan Xiao street, you can find any link in the garment processing chain.

The price of each sewing machine is about 2000 yuan, plus rent. The cost of opening the factory in the first year is about 150 thousand yuan. In second years, it will only pay rent and wages, and it will be profitable within two years.

Pretend to be looking for the workshop, a landlord told the author: "as long as you can get the order, there will be a about one hundred thousand or even $50000 to start the factory.

No equipment can be rented, no worker will put up a notice and someone will be there.

If you find it troublesome, find a small factory to do it for you. "

Without its own design and sales channels, it can only do incoming processing, as well as doing workshops with additional work such as OEM and buckle. Yu Yun garment factory is also at the end of the industrial chain.

According to an injured worker, the material taken by the boss is more than 400 leather garments, 31 yuan for processing a garment and 19 yuan for the factory.

The two storey building owned by the boss is more than 200 square meters. The annual rent is 40 thousand yuan, plus water and electricity charges. The annual expenditure is sixty thousand or seventy thousand yuan.

"The small garment factory is low in cost, small profits and quick turnover, and a garment earns only one yuan, and they will receive it."

Garment factory owners and garment workers reached a consensus on the "lowest cost and maximum profit".

After the fire, all the small clothing factories that rented houses were ordered to stop working. In the alley where the fire broke out, the author still saw workers carrying the newly completed garments onto the van.

"The time limit is fixed. If you can't pay for your work, you will lose money. I heard that some employers even talked with the workers, but they could not start at night."

A worker told the author.

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A difficult link between urban and rural areas

About 1 kilometers away from the scene of the fire, a warning line has been set up to prevent entry of vehicles for decoration materials.

There are three or four unfinished buildings near the fire scene, similar to the small buildings on fire, some of them are more advanced, and there are balcony guardrails outside the room.

"It would have been completed in half a month, but now we have to wait and see what we should do now."

The house of Zhang Jun's house was built around 2010, and the Zhang Jun family working outside was not living in the village. The house was completely used for rent.

According to He Dongsheng, this three or four storey building rises from 2007.

Although there were individual tenants who rent their houses before, the demand for factory buildings for clothing processing was large at that time.

An annual rent of about 40 thousand yuan, although the initial investment to 4.5 million yuan, but two years can be returned.

Located in the South Fifth Ring Road, along with the demolition of Dahongmen and the development of Yizhuang Development Zone, many villages were rumored to demolished many years ago.

"Most of the small buildings in the village have been built over the past two years, and if they are to be demolished this time, many people will not be able to afford them."

Village homestead is a collective land and can not be applied for bank loans. Most villagers borrow money from relatives and friends.

Zhang Jun's life is good in the eyes of neighbors. At least there are jobs and housing outside. Most villagers live on their rents.

He Dongsheng, a 50 year old family of 5, came out of the village when he was young. When he turned into a household account, he went bankrupt at the age of more than 40.

"The village collective will give the villagers 500 yuan per month, I am a resident account, even the money is not."

He Dongsheng said that when there was no rent income, he went out to do odd jobs. The demand for housing since 2007 brought him a turning point in his life.

There is no money to build a small building. He Dongsheng has set up more than ten small rooms in his own flat house, each rented out at a price of more than 200 yuan a month.

Like the "handshake house", in order to maximize the rentable area, He Dongsheng and his neighbor's courtyard walls are closely linked. The yard becomes a long and narrow passageway, with two sides opposite to the door.

The handshake building simply saves the courtyard walls and tightly ties them together.

"The village does not care, but the law does not blame the public."

He Dongsheng recalled that when the first building was built, the Village Committee visited the house, but it still did not block the rising tide of the villagers.

Villagers and tenants have reached a consensus on the "lowest cost and maximum profit". The sacrifice is only safety. The notice of improvement in the village has finally become a dead letter.

It was reported that the fire department had inspected the fire building this month and issued a notice of rectification within 15 days, but the landlord had no action.

More dangerous is that the civilian voltage simply can not support the needs of garment factory equipment.

A clothing factory owner said that the landlord provided a voltage of 220 volts, and the voltage required for a steam turbine was far beyond that standard. Therefore, the load of power supply often occurred. In order to maintain production, many garment factories privately rolled the wires.

"Sometimes I feel a bit hot when I touch wires."

People who are struggling to understand dialects run around with big bags, sending the most fashionable clothes to the counter for the first time.

The well-established bosses, dressed in bright clothes and running Mercedes or TOYOTA, still live in temporary buildings and crowded small bungalows.

Clinics, food markets, hairdressers and restaurants are all available, but without exception, there are piles of rubbish at the door.

Roads, whether sunny or rainy, are always muddy.

A documentary shot in 1995 recorded the situation in Dahongmen, where the "Zhejiang village" was located. In 80s, it began to be known as the "Zhejiang village" by the Wenzhou people's clothing trade gathering. The South Street is quite similar to the "Zhejiang village" 16 years ago.

The demolition and renovation in Dahongmen area took nearly 10 years. A series of large-scale commercial city construction, shanty towns demolition, south central axis road and bus rapid pit were opened to traffic. Fengtai District was committed to building Dahongmen into CBC (the core area of clothing business).

The industrial upgrading of Dahongmen's clothing trade circle brings the overall migration of the low-end industrial chain. Originally, the quiet villages became the urban and rural fringe in the urban expansion, repeating the history of the "Zhejiang village".

"We do not want to see the mess in the village now, but rent is the only source of income for my family."

In the face of economic interests, He Dongsheng said he could only compromise.

Since the 90s of last century, the old town of Gong has been planning its own industrial park to find the direction of development. But it is located at the junction of Chaoyang, Daxing and Fengtai three districts, and Yizhuang Development Zone in the southeast. Although the location is closer to the city center, it has never found a better way of development.

In addition to watching the scene of the fire, the household investigation conducted by the Public Security Bureau and city management also drew attention from the village garment factories and workers.

Should illegal buildings be demolished?

Where should those rented workers go?

There have been Dahongmen's demolition experience. Many of the owners of the unlicensed garment factories have been mentally prepared to move away. What they want is the complete industrial chain and low cost of Nan Xiao street.

"If the license is convenient, we will also consider it."

The loss of workers is relatively small, "come out to work is to earn money, Beijing or Guangzhou is not a problem."

The real worry is that only the villagers of Nan Xiao street, Mimura has more than 2000 villagers, but tens of thousands of foreigners live here.

"If they all go, I'm afraid they can't sell bags of salt in the village.

What should those who borrow money fail to do?

In fact, our villagers prefer to be able to demolished and make good overall renovation in the village.

He Dongsheng said to the author.