Eighteen firefighters and a forestry worker were killed in the early hours of this morning while battling a forest fire in the mountainous Liangshan district of Sichuan, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported today.

While the number of workplace accidents in China has fallen significantly since the start of the coronavirus (covid-19) epidemic, there have already been several cases of covid-19 infections in enterprises that resumed production without taking the necessary precautions to protect workers.