Industrial Inferno: The Story of the Thai Toy Factory Fire

This is an extraordinary account of the worst factory fire in history - the 1993 blaze at the Kader Industrial Toy Company outside Bangkok, Thailand. One hundred and eighty-eight people - 174 women and 14 men - perished in the fire. Kader workes earned less than $1 an hour making toys for such corporate giants as Toys 'R Us, Hasbro and Tyco. Those who died were trapped in a building with no fire extinguishers or alarms and no fire escape; management had locked the exits. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City in 1911, which killed 146 workers employed in a garment sweatshop, provoked national and international outrage. The disaster at Kader went virtually unreported in the international and US media. Industrial Inferno, which includes dozens of pictures by photographer Richard Phillips, links the Kader tragedy to some of the crucial issues confronting contemporary society.