At least 61 people have been killed in a fire at a hypermarket in the Iraqi city of Kut, with many of the victims dying from suffocation inside rooms filled with smoke.
Iraq's Interior Ministry said more than 45 others had been rescued, while 14 bodies recovered from the scene remained unidentified.
“The tragic fire claimed the lives of 61 innocent citizens, most of whom suffocated in bathrooms,” the ministry said.
Mohammed Al Mayahi, the Governor of Wasit province, of which Kut is the capital, announced a three-day mourning period after the “tragic fire in one of the commercial centres” on Wednesday night.
The cause of the blaze was electrical failure, the head of the Wasit provincial council's security committee Habib Al Badri told The National. “The building violates safety requirements,” he added, saying the fire started from the second floor and went up to the fifth.
Exacerbating the situation, he said, was that the civil defence “didn't have modern equipment to contain the fire, therefore they used construction cranes from contractors”.
At a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani said the fire “occurred due to the same mistakes” seen in previous tragedies, according to a statement from his office. He blamed “the same negligence and leniency in health and safety conditions”.
Mr Al Sudani described the latest incident as a “form of murder and corruption”, saying it “requires deterrent and punitive measures”.
The cabinet also agreed to compensate the families of the victims with 10 million Iraqi dinar (about $7,000) each and ordered the Health Ministry to treat the injured abroad if needed.
Videos on social media showed flames engulfing the five-storey hypermarket, sending thick plumes of smoke into the air as panicked shoppers rushed to escape. Firefighters raced to extinguish the blaze and rescue those trapped inside.
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Scores of people were killed when fire broke out at a busy hypermarket in Kut, eastern Iraq. AP -
Security forces gather beside the burnt shell of the building. AP -
Rescue teams clear debris after flames tore through the newly opened hypermarket. AFP -
People are gripped by shock. The governor of Wasit province, of which Kut is the capital, announced a three-day period of mourning. AP -
Women overcome by grief. Iraq's Interior Ministry said most of the victims died from smoke inhalation while trapped in the building's bathrooms. AP -
The cause of the disaster has yet to be established but one witness said: 'An air conditioner exploded on the second floor and then the fire erupted.' AP -
Firefighters managed to rescue dozens from the burning hypermarket, as well as the grim task of recovering charred bodies, some of which remain unidentified. AP
Families, many with young children, were seen fleeing the scene, some clutching babies as they coughed and covered their faces to shield themselves from the smoke. Others were trapped on the upper floors.
On Thursday morning, grieving families gathered outside the city's main hospital and morgue to collect the bodies of their loved ones. Women were wailing and beating their chests in grief.
Nasir Al Quraishi, a doctor in his fifties, said he lost five family members in the fire.
“A disaster has befallen us,” he told the AFP news agency. “We went to the mall to have some food, eat dinner and escape power cuts at home.
“An air conditioner exploded on the second floor and then the fire erupted – and we couldn't escape.”
Safety standards in the construction sector are frequently flouted in Iraq, with accidents common. Widespread corruption and weak government monitoring have been blamed for the lack of standards in many areas of the country.
High-profile disasters in recent years include hospital fires that have led to hundreds of deaths, with these incidents blamed on poor storage of medical oxygen cylinders, faulty electrical wiring and a general lack of safety measures.
In September 2023, a devastating fire at a wedding left more than 100 people dead in the predominantly Christian district of Al Hamdaniyah, also known as Qaraqosh, to the east of Mosul, when about 1,000 guests were packed into a hall.
