Man in China jumps into steel furnace and dies after reportedly losing money on stock exchange
- A steelworker was caught on surveillance camera jumping into a blast furnace in China, local police have reported
- The man had allegedly accrued large financial losses trading in stocks, his colleagues said
Alice Yan in Shanghai
Published: 2:48 pm, 30 Mar, 2021
A screen shot from a video of a man jumping into a vat of molten steel, in China. Photo: 163.com
A worker at a steel manufacturer in China has taken his own life by jumping into a blast furnace after allegedly losing large sums of money on the stock market, local police said.
The clip is from a recording of a surveillance camera at the Baogang Group, a steelmaker in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, and has appeared online in recent days.
According to a statement issued by the company on Tuesday, Wang Long, a 34-year-old worker at the group’s steel pipe branch, went missing last Wednesday, March 24, when he was on night duty. The company organised workers to search for him.
“We feel deeply sorry for his death. We are proactively appeasing the emotions of his family and carrying out psychological guidance for our workers,” the company said in the statement.
After investigating the case police ruled out murder and determined the cause of death as suicide.
In the short video, Wang is seen taking off his safety helmet and gloves and places them on the ground, and then hesitating for several minutes before jumping into the furnace containing molten steel.
“He just disappeared instantly,” a worker who has seen the surveillance tape told the
Xiaoxiang Morning Post.
Wang’s colleagues said he had been trading stocks and futures for a long time. Police said they now believe Wang took his own life because he had a high level of loan debt which he was unable to repay. Wang reportedly lost over 60,000 yuan (US$9,130) alone on Wednesday on the stock market.
In April of last year, a 47-year-old man took his own life by jumping from a high-rise building in a hospital in Putian of Fujian. Police said in a statement that he had lost over a million yuan (US$152,000) on the stock market.
Internet users have been discussing Wang’s death on social media platform Weibo, with the topic having been mentioned more than 45 million times.
“As a leek (synonym for individual stock investors in China) like him, I sympathise with him,” one person commented.
“Life is precious. What a pity that he lost his life at such a young age!”another person wrote.
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Jamahir's comment : This is ridiculous ! Firstly, what is a stock exchange doing in a country that is apparently governed by a communist movement ? Is this incident what is called "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" ? Why should these two men have to commit suicide just because of an artificial thing like money ?
As myself being a communist I cannot respect China if the governance system allows such things to happen.