More than 35 dead, dozens injured in Kuwait building fire
KUWAIT CITY — 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.
Forty-three people were injured, the health ministry said, after the blaze broke out in a residential building south of Kuwait City at dawn.
“Unfortunately, we received a report of a fire at… exactly 6:00 am (0300 GMT) in the Mangaf area,” Major General Eid Al-Owaihan, director of the interior ministry’s General Department of Criminal Evidence, said during a visit to the site.
READ: Kuwait, where OFW abuse is routine, targets Filipino visas as PH gov’t flip flops on deployment ban
Article continues after this advertisement“As for the deaths in the building behind me, the number has exceeded 35 so far.”
Article continues after this advertisementForensic teams have identified three of the bodies, Owaihan added.
READ: Tulfo: Kuwait deployment ban stays until damages on Ranara case are paid
According to a source in the General Fire Department, the victims suffocated from rising smoke after the fire broke out on the ground floor.
The building’s owner has been detained in an investigation into potential negligence, the Interior Minister Sheikh Fahd Al-Yousef said as he too visited the scene.
