Workers have been recalled the moment they fled from a Chinese iPhone plant after fearing that a widening coronavirus outbreak forced staff to lock the workplace down.
Many employees endured days of lockdown at Apple supplier Foxconn’s vast facility in Zhengzhou, in the capital of Henan province in central China, following reports that a number of workers had been placed under quarantine because of an outbreak Covid-19.
This worry saw 200,000 employees flee the production site on Saturday.
Videos were shared on Chinese social media of the alleged workers climbing over fences and carrying their belongings along the road in a hurry to avoid being locked up on site.
Other photographs showed workers waiting for buses to return home, while many trekked across fields during the day and night.
Reportedly, whenever a positive or suspected case was found at a production line, there would be a public broadcast at the assembly factory, but work would continue.
However, it remains unclear as to how many cases of Covid have been identified at the site, nor did management at the facility publicise the information.
Yuan, who has only provided this first name, recalled the moment he climbed the fences over the weekend and escaped the complex, joining others fleeing what they feared was a widening Covid outbreak.
After joining streams of other escaping workers, by Sunday morning Yuan had hiked to the banks of the Yellow River, the northern boundary of Zhengzhou.
He was then stopped 50 km (30 miles) short of Hebi by authorities, and has been put under quarantine.
After fleeing the campus, he said that: “I’ll never go back to Foxconn.
"Zhengzhou has put a chill in my heart.”
Since mid-October, Foxconn has been wrestling with a Covid-19 outbreak at its facility in Zhengzhou.
On October 14, Yuan said that his colleagues were requested to do "endless PCR tests".
And after about 10 days of doing those, employees were forced to wear N95 masks "and were given traditional Chinese medicine", the worker recalled.
Despite the factory still being operational, thousands of workers had been put in quarantine on-site and many were "taken away" in the middle of the working day.
According to a post on Zhengzhou government’s official WeChat account, over the weekend Foxconn told its employees: “[We] fully understand your eagerness to go back home.
“For employees who voluntarily stay in the company’s factory area, the port government and the company will jointly ensure everyone’s…health and safety."
Meanwhile, on the October 19, Foxconn announced that it was banning all dine-in catering at the Zhengzhou plant - requiring workers to eat meals in their rooms.
Foxconn said in a statement: "The government agreed to resume dine-in meals to improve the convenience and satisfaction of employees' lives."
But at the same time, the company reported that it was maintaining "normal production" of the latest iPhone 14 models to keep up with the strain of demand, just before the key holiday shopping season begins.
The Zhengzhou campus is the world’s largest iPhone factory, and typically accounts for as much as 85% of iPhone assembly capacity, according to Ivan Lam, a senior research analyst at Counterpoint.
Meanwhile, the city of Zhengzhou reported 167 locally transmitted Covid cases in the seven days to 29 October - up from 97 infections in the previous seven-day period.
China typically isolates vast numbers of people considered close or even potential contacts of an infected person, as it continues to wage war on Covid with lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines.
Incidentally, on Monday, the Shanghai Disney Resort was shut to comply with counter-epidemic requirements, while visitors were still inside the park.
