At least 49 dead, dozens injured as fire guts Kuwait building housing workers
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Soot can be seen blackening the exterior of a building gutted in a deadly blaze on June 12 in Kuwait.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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KUWAIT CITY – A fire that broke out in a building housing workers in the city of Mangaf in southern Kuwait early on June 12 has killed at least 49 people, the country’s First Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Fahad Yusuf Saud Al-Sabah said during a visit to the site.
Images from the scene showed soot blackening the exterior of the six-storey building that housed 196 workers.
Oil-rich Kuwait has large numbers of foreign workers, many of them from South Asia and South-east Asia, mostly working in construction or service industries.
The fire was reported to the authorities at around 6am, Major-General Eid Rashed Hamad said.
According to a source in the General Fire Department, the victims suffocated from rising smoke after the fire broke out on the ground floor.
Forensic teams are working at the site and have identified three bodies so far.
The nationalities of the victims have not been announced, but the Indian ambassador, when contacted by Agence France-Presse, said he was at the hospital visiting survivors.
India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar posted on X that he was “deeply shocked by the news” and offered “deepest condolences to the families of those who tragically lost their lives”.
Mr Sheikh Fahad, who also runs the interior and defence ministries, accused the building’s owners of violations and greed, saying those factors had contributed to the incident.
“Unfortunately, the greed of real estate owners is what leads to these matters,” he said.
He said the building’s owner has been detained in an investigation into potential negligence.
Any properties found to have violated safety regulations will be evacuated immediately, he warned.
“We will work to address the issue of labour overcrowding and neglect,” he said. “We will detain the owner of the property where the fire broke out until legal procedures are completed.”
The blaze is one of the worst seen in Kuwait, which borders Iraq and Saudi Arabia and sits on about 7 per cent of the world’s oil reserves.
In 2009, 57 people died when a Kuwaiti woman, apparently seeking revenge, set fire to a tent at a wedding party when her husband married a second wife.
Nusra al-Enezi threw petrol on the tent and set it alight as people celebrated inside. She was hanged in 2017 for the crime, whose victims included many women and children. AFP, REUTERS
