Over 60 people died and dozens were injured in a shopping centre blaze in the eastern Iraqi city of Kut. An investigation and legal actions are in progress.
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A fire that tore through a shopping centre in the Iraqi city of Kut has left more than 60 people dead and dozens injured, Iraqi officials said on Thursday.
Iraq's Ministry of Interior said in a statement that 61 people died, most of them from suffocation. Fourteen remain unidentified among the dead, it said.
Civil defence teams were able to rescue more than 45 people who were trapped inside the building, the statement said.
The shopping centre, which had opened only a week earlier, was in a five-story building that also contained a restaurant and supermarket.
The state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that people remained missing. Photographs and videos on local media showed the building fully engulfed in flames.
Three days of national mourning have been declared for the victims, and an investigation has been launched into the cause of the fire. The results of the probe are expected within two days.
Legal cases were filed against the building and shopping centre owners, Provincial Governor Mohammed al-Mayyeh said in a statement. He did not specify what the charges were.
"We assure the families of the innocent victims that we will not be lenient with those who were directly or indirectly responsible for this incident," al-Mayyeh said.
The results of the preliminary investigation will be released within 48 hours, he said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani said in a statement that he had directed the interior minister to go to the site of the fire to investigate and take measures to prevent a recurrence.
Poor building standards have often contributed to tragic fires in Iraq. In July 2021, a blaze at a hospital in the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah that killed between 60 and 92 people was determined to have been fueled by a highly flammable, low-cost type of "sandwich panel" cladding that is illegal in Iraq.
In 2023, more than 100 people died in a fire at a wedding hall in the predominantly Christian area of Hamdaniya in Nineveh province after the ceiling panels above a pyrotechnic machine burst into flames.