A member of the Kuwaiti security forces stand outside a building which was ingulfed by fire, in Kuwait City, on June 12, 2024. (Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat / AFP)
UPDATE: Death toll in Kuwait building fire rises to 49
Kuwait City: More than 35 people were killed and dozens injured after a fire broke out at dawn in a building housing nearly 200 foreign workers in Kuwait, officials said on Wednesday.
Forty-three people were injured, the health ministry said, in the blaze in the Mangaf area south of Kuwait City which is heavily populated with migrant labourers.
The building which was engulfed by fire, in Kuwait City, on June 12, 2024. (Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat / AFP)
"Unfortunately, we received a report of a fire at... exactly 6:00 am (0300 GMT) in the Mangaf area," Major General Eid Al-Owaihan, head of the interior ministry's General Department of Criminal Evidence, said at the site.
"As for the deaths in the building behind me, the number has exceeded 35 so far."
More than 35 people were killed and dozens injured in a building fire in an area heavily populated with foreign workers in Kuwait, the interior ministry said on Wednesday.
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Images from the scene showed soot blackening the exterior of the six-storey building which housed 196 workers, according to information given to the minister by their employer.
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, Owaihan said.
The nationalities of the victims have not been announced but the Indian ambassador, when contacted by AFP, said he was at the hospital visiting survivors.
Kuwaiti firefighters and ambulances gather outside the building in Kuwait City, on June 12, 2024. (Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat / AFP)
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".
The building's owner has been detained in an investigation into potential negligence, Interior Minister Sheikh Fahd Al-Yousef said as he visited the scene.
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," the minister 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.
