Tianjin Samsung SDI Factory Fire (Photo : Dhyanu Bhardwaj/YouTube)
A minor fire broke on Wednesday at the factory of Samsung in Tianjin City. The blaze started in a waste facility, including faulty batteries of the Galaxy Note 7.
The factory is where Samsung manufactured batteries for the Galaxy Note 7, which had exploding battery issue that led to the recall of millions of the flagship in 2016. The facility is where Samsung SDI is producing batteries for the Galaxy S8, the new flagship of Samsung, scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 2017.
Half-Finished Products
According to a blog of the Wuqing branch of the Tianjin Fire Department on its Sina Weibo account, lithium batteries and some half-finished products caught fire inside the production workshops of Samsung SDI. The branch deployed 110 firefighters in 19 trucks to douse the flames, Reuters reported.
Despite the fire which had been extinguished, there were no deaths or major impact on the operations of the factory. Shin Yong-doo, the spokesman of Samsung SDI, said the bulk of the plant was running as normal. SDI has five production facilities in China, including the Tianjin factory.
Defective Batteries Supplier
In a report issued in late January, Samsung blamed SDI and Amperex Technology, another China-based company, for supplying it with defective batteries for the Galaxy Note 7 which short circuited linked to defects related to the battery’s negative electrode. The recall burned a $5.3 billion hole in the operating profit for 2016 of the Seoul-based tech giant.
There are rumors that the recalled batteries of the Galaxy Note 7 would be used on the upcoming flagship Galaxy S8, Tech Times reported. The report added it is unclear if the half-finished products inside the production workshop of Samsung SDI would be the ones to be used in the Galaxy S8.
