Riots have broken out in an Apple factory in China, forcing a temporary closure of the plant.
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The plant owned by Foxconn involved 2000 workers at a site in Northern China at Taiyuan, Shanxi, reports Dow Jones newswire.
40 workers were injured in the brawl late Sunday and an astonishing 5,000 police were called to the scene to bring it under control, according to Reuters.
The new iPhone 5 is being produced at the plant, the report states.
The fight involved two different employee groups in a dormitory over a personal issue, which then spread into the factory, forcing the plant to close for the day.
It took several hours for police to get control of the situation and a number of arrests were made at the plant, which employs almost 80,000 workers.
“The cause of this dispute is under investigation by local authorities and we are working closely with them in this process, but it appears not to have been work-related,” a Foxxconn rep said.
There are still a number of police believed to be at the scene.
It was recently reported Foxconn workers were forced to work huge hours overtime in order to fill mass orders of Apple’s new smartphone, which went on sale on Friday.
Foxconn, Apple’s largest contract manufacturer, is no stranger to controversy following accusations of flouting labour laws, poor working conditions, low pay and a spate of suicides by workers at various factory locations in China.
It is not known what other devices are made at the Taiyuan based plant.
This is the latest setback for Apple’s iPhone 5 after its new in-house maps system was panned and Facebook integration with iOS 6 said to be woeful.
