At least 60 people have died in a fire that destroyed a shopping centre in the Iraqi city of Kut, according to officials.
The shopping centre reportedly opened five days prior to the fire, which started on Wednesday night and has now been contained.
State media said that numerous people are still unaccounted for, despite social media footage showing firefighters rescuing people from the shopping centre’s roof.
“A tragedy and a calamity has befallen us,” regional governor Mohammed al-Miyahi said, adding that legal action would be brought against the shopping centre’s owner.
The governor has also declared three days of mourning.
Videos on INA’s news channel show flames ripping through several floors of the Corniche Hypermarket in the city’s centre, as firefighters try to douse them.
Other clips circulating on social media appear to show a small number of people on the roof during the fire, as well as the burned-out insides of the centre.
Several people were rescued from the building by firefighters, al-Miyahi told local media.
Ambulances were still taking casualties to hospitals in the city, which is about 160 km (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad, at 04:00 local time.
“The tragic fire claimed the lives of 61 innocent citizens, most of whom suffocated in bathrooms, and among them 14 charred bodies yet to be identified,” the interior ministry said in a statement quoted by news agency AFP.
Nasir al-Quraishi, a doctor in his 50s, told AFP he lost five family members in the blaze.
“A disaster has befallen us,” he said. “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 it.”
A medical source told the agency: “We have more than 50 martyrs, and many unidentified bodies”.
Safety standards are often poorly observed at Iraqi construction sites, which have face decades of mismanagement and corruption.
In 2023, a fire swept through a Christian wedding party in northern Iraq, killing more than 100 people.
More than 90 people died in the Iraqi city of Nasiriya after a fire in a Covid isolation ward at a hospital in 2021.
(BBC)
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