A factory worker jumped into a molten-steel furnace after losing more than $9,000 on the stock market

• A steelworker in China jumped into the furnace at the factory where he worked, authorities said.
• Wang Long had lost more than $9,100 on the stock market on the day he died, his company said.
• A surveillance video shows Wang taking off his safety gear before leaping into the furnace.

A steel factory worker in China jumped into a blast furnace and died late last month after discovering he lost more than $9,000 on the stock market, authorities confirmed on Tuesday.

Wang Long, a 34-year-old worker at the state-owned Baotou Steel company in Inner Mongolia, had been working on his night shift on March 24 when he went missing, according to the South China Morning Post.

The company had organized workers to search for him but later found a surveillance video depicting Wang jumping into a furnace containing molten steel. Temperatures inside a furnace can reach more than 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit (1,500 degrees Celsius).

In the surveillance footage, which has been circulating on Chinese social media channels, Wang is seen standing in front of the glowing red furnace as he takes off his gloves and safety helmet, VICE reported. He hesitates for a few minutes before eventually jumping in.

"He just disappeared instantly," a worker who has seen the video said, according to the South China Morning Post.

Wang was a longtime stock and futures investor and he had lost more than 60,000 yuan ($9,100) from his investments on the day of his death, Baotou Steel said in a statement on Tuesday.

"It's suspected that his suicide was related to the large amount of losses and that he could not repay his heavy debts," a company statement said, according to VICE. "We feel deeply sorry for his death. We are proactively appeasing the emotions of his family and carrying out psychological guidance for our workers."

Police have since ruled out murder and determined the cause of death as suicide.

In April 2020, another Chinese man who had lost over a million yuan ($152,000) on the stock market took his own life by jumping from a high-rise building in Fujian.