Formosa Plastics plant in Vietnam attacked by rioters

ONE Chinese worker died and 90 others were injured when rioters attacked and set ablaze the steel plant owned by Formosa Plastics Group in Vietnam. This is the latest facility that was targeted over mounting tension with mainland China.

Located in the central province of Ha Tinh, the plant is expected to be southeast Asia's largest steel making facility upon completion in 2017. The Ha Tinh industrial park, estimated to cost more than $20 billion, is more than half complete. When finished in 2020, it will have a port, a 2,100-MW power plant and six furnaces, Vietnamese media say.

Hundreds of the plant's Vietnamese workers provoked Chinese colleagues and attacked them before setting fire to the manufacturing facilities, the company said in the statement. No details of fire damage or financial losses were immediately available, according to company statement. The looters were driven away late on May 14. The province's chief held an emergency meeting with police after he arrived at the site at 10 p.m.

Thousands of Vietnamese set fire to foreign factories in industrial zones in the south of the country in an angry reaction to Chinese oil drilling in a part of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam.