200 000 workers locked within Zhengzhou iPhone factories, China

Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 07 October 2022 from 10:28:55 to 10:29:20 UTC
Sentinel-2 MSI acquired on 24 October 2022 at 03:07:59 UTC
Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 31 October 2022 from 10:28:54 to 10:29:19 UTC
Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 12 November 2022 from 10:28:54 to 10:29:19 UTC
Author(s): Sentinel Vision team, VisioTerra, France - svp@visioterra.fr
Keyword(s): Land, infrastructure, transport, health, China
Fig. 1 - S2 (24.10.2022) - The 6.5 millions inhabitants of Zhengzhou urban area, a city of strategic importance, are under lockdown.
Zhengzhou is the capital of Henan province in central China and is home to about 6.5 million people, which of 4 million in the city proper. It has become a main national transport hub with developed transport infrastructures around Foxconn’s Zhengzhou campus. The Taiwanese company's factory had about 300 000 workers before the lockdown, allowing 200 million iPhones to leave its assembly lines every year.
Fig. 2 - S1 (07.10.2022->12.11.2022) - Over 200 000 workers are locked within Foxconn Zhengzhou assembly line, the largest iPhone factory in the world.
It reported several hundreds of locally transmitted infections, an increasing but moderate number. Due to zero-COVID policy, the compound has operated for weeks within a self-contained bubble. Apple and Foxconn have said they’re working to replace staff who’ve left (with possibly now around 200 000 workers remaining) and resume full production as soon as possible. On 23 November, violent protests erupted over unpaid salaries and concerns around the conditions throughout the strict COVID-19 lockdown in the prefecture.