The family of a Chinese worker found dead on February 3 in his dormitory says he died due to overworking at an Apple iPhones factory after shifts that clocked in 84 working hours every week.

The health of Tian Fulei, 26, deteriorated in 2012 when he started working at Pegatron, a huge iPhone factory in China. The death of this worker comes two months after BBC filmed a documentary featuring the excessive working hours of the exhausted employees.

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Tian Zhoumei, 25, the worker's sister, said their family is devastated by what had happened and blamed the company for his brother's demise. However, Pegatron denied it they had anything to do with Tian's death.

Tian's sudden death has highlighted concern over low-paid workers in China as the country tries to keep up with the increasing demand for Apple products.

As compensation, Pegatron gave Tian's family CNY80,000, but reports say the company initially wanted to give just CNY15,000 to the grieving family.

Tian had a basic salary of CNY1,500 but was offered CNY4,000-CNY5,000 more due to the demand of the products. He could not resist the offer because he had plans to marry his girlfriend in May.

According to Chinese law, factory workers are only allowed to have a maximum of 36 hours of overtime in a month. Apple also states that workers making their products should not work more than 60 hours in a week, except if the situation demands more hours from the workers.

BBC's documentary showed that these workers clock in more hours than they should and barely have time to eat. It also featured workers falling asleep in the workplace due to the 12-hour shifts.

BBC also shares that these workers are not allowed to go out of the factory without any written permission from their supervisors, who are very strict. One worker even recounted seeing young girls being carried out of the building on stretchers after falling unconscious in the middle of their work shift.

Apple CEO Tim Cook reacted to the BBC documentary, saying he was offended by the allegations of the British media firm.

Tagsoverworking, iPhone factory, Apple Factory, factory worker, Tian Fulei