BAGHDAD: Officials struggled Friday to identify more than a dozen bodies pulled from a deadly shopping mall fire in Iraq, amid ongoing investigations into what caused the blaze.
An Iraqi medical official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment said the final death toll was 63, including 18 bodies that could not be identified due to the severity of the burns and would undergo DNA testing.
The Corniche Hypermarket mall in the town of Kut in Wasit province, a five-story building containing restaurants, shops and a supermarket, had opened just days before the blaze, which officials said broke out late Wednesday on the second floor in an area selling perfume and cosmetics.
Civil defense crews were able to rescue 45 people from the burning building. Officials said that most of those who died were trapped on the upper floors.
While the cause of the fire has not yet been determined, officials blamed lack of safety standards in the building for the scale of the tragedy.
Provincial Gov. Mohammed Al-Miyahi has said that the building owner did not implement fire safety measures and had not applied for required permits.
The provincial council of Wasit on Thursday voted to form committees to carry out building safety inspections and to suspend the director of Kut municipality and the director of occupational safety until investigations into the fire are complete.
Al-Miyahi said Thursday that legal complaints had been filed against the building owner and shopping center owner, who could not be reached for comment. The governor said in a press conference that the son of the shopping center owner and other members of his family were among the victims in the blaze.
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 to 92 people was determined to have been fueled by 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.
