Iraqi Mall Fire Leaves At Least 61 Dead
In the Iraqi city of Kut, a fire overwhelmed a new five-story shopping center, killing at least 61 people, including men, women, and children. While more than 45 people were rescued from the fire, many are still listed as missing, according to the nation’s Ministry of the Interior.
The ministry also stated that most of the deaths were caused by suffocation due to heavy smoke from the fire, the BBC reported. Fourteen of the bodies recovered from the building were so badly burned that they have not yet been identified, according to the ministry.
The region’s local governor, Mohammed Jameel Al-Mayani, claimed that the fire began in both the building’s large supermarket and a restaurant where families were dining and shopping.
The Al-Kornish Hypermarket had only been open for seven days before the fire erupted.
Video footage from various sources, including from local authorities, showed people on the roof of the building while firefighters dealt with the flames, and emergency responders rescued other people by helping them through small windows.
Shia al-Sudani, Iraq’s prime minister, has called for an investigation into the cause of the fire.
Local officials are already laying the blame on substandard construction and preparations. Al-Mayani said that “details from an initial probe into the cause would be released within 48 hours. A legal case has been filed against the building owner,” according to CNN.
“According to Habib al-Badri, the head of the [Wasit] Province’s security committee, an electrical malfunction sparked the fire,” The New York Times reported. “But he said poor building practices and an unprepared rescue service had worsened the casualty toll.” Al-Badri specifically pointed to a lack of emergency exits, ladders, and extinguishers.
If the mall fire was due to negligence, it wouldn’t be the first time this happened in Iraq. In 2023, a fire at a wedding killed more than 100 people because of the presence of highly flammable material coupled with a lack of fire exits or extinguishers. In 2021, two different hospital fires accounted for at least 174 deaths—in these instances, sprinklers malfunctioned, fire trucks ran out of water, and the front door of one of the hospital wards was padlocked shut.
“Some political leaders in Iraq moved quickly to cite the [Kut] fire as another devastating consequence of pervasive corruption in the country,” the Times reported. “…Poorly constructed or unfinished building projects—often attributed to corruption—are common.”
Iraq’s commission of federal integrity announced it would also investigate the fire in Kut. The commission, an independent entity that focuses on government accountability, noted that there were certain failures executed by the interior ministry’s rescue services during the initial response to the incident, according to the Times.
