New Delhi, July 9 -- BEIJING - Twenty-eight people died Thursday when a fire swept through a shoe factory in Jinjiang, Fujian province, trapping workers on upper floors and sending rescue teams scrambling through thick black smoke as China confronted what has become the deadliest industrial fire in the country this year.

The fire broke out around noon at the Huiteng Shoes plant in Jiangtou village, a manufacturing district within Jinjiang that sits at the center of China's footwear export industry. Images shared on Chinese social media showed workers clustered on the building's roof, some appearing to signal for help while emergency personnel assembled below. Others, firefighters confirmed by evening, had lost communication and could not...