Broken fire suppression system made blaze at Apple cable supplier worse

Faulty equipment at Foxlink

On Monday, Foxlink stopped production at its India cable production facility after a fire caused part of a building to collapse. J Ramanaiah, head of the state's Fire Services Department for the Tirupati district, said the fire started in the afternoon and damaged approximately half of the factory's machinery.

Foxlink has ten assembly lines in two separate facilities in the Andhra Pradesh region, and four have been destroyed. Production in the remaining assembly lines is expected to resume later this week.

There were no casualties from the fire, and officials estimated a loss of approximately $12 million from the incident. However, a Reuters report on Tuesday reveals that most of the site's fire safety equipment wasn't functional.

Smoke detectors, sprinklers, and fire hydrants were faulty, although the fire extinguishers did work. "The smoke detector was not activated and fire alarms didn't go off," Ramanaiah said.

Foxlink workers say the blaze happened during a lunch break. "The fire became uncontrollable," an unnamed worker said.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated, and authorities will decide whether to look into the incident further, according to Shuvana Sony, zone manager of the industrial park where the plant is located. Sony said her previous visits to the production facility didn't reveal safety lapses.

Foxlink produces iPhone charging cables and other equipment, and a source said that as a key supplier for Apple in India, "there could be potential supply chain disruptions for iPhones made in India, or shipped from India."