Iraq Mall Fire Kills Scores Of People

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

BAGHDAD (Worthy News) – The governor of eastern Iraq’s Wasit province has declared three days of mourning after more than 60 people, including women and children, were killed when a fire destroyed a newly opened shopping mall.

Governor Mohammed al-Mayyeh said the cause of the blaze in Wasit’s city of Kut is being investigated, but legal cases were filed against the building and mall owners. 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 stressed in a statement.

Iraq’s Ministry of Interior announced that 61 people died, most of them from suffocation, in the fire that broke out late Wednesday. Among the dead were 14 charred bodies that remain unidentified, it said.

The ministry explained that civil defense teams could rescue more than 45 people trapped inside the building.

The mall, which had opened only a week earlier, was in a five-story building that also contained a restaurant and supermarket, media said.

PEOPLE MISSING

The state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that people remained missing.

Dramatic photographs and videos obtained by Worthy News showed the building engulfed in flames with people still standing on what was left of the rooftop near spreading flames.

A woman shouted in panic among a crowd of anxious people outside, awaiting word of loved ones. Footage showed the charred remains of goods inside what was left of the building.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani said in a statement that he had directed the interior minister to go to the fire site to investigate and take measures to prevent a recurrence.

Poor building standards have often contributed to tragic fires in Iraq, which already suffers from violence.

It also reminded minority Christians of a deadly blaze in 2023, when over 100 people died in a fire at a wedding hall in the mainly Christian area of Hamdaniya in Nineveh province after the ceiling panels above a pyrotechnic machine burst into flames.

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.

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