Dozens dead after fire at shopping centre in Iraq

Firefighters at the scene of the blaze in Kut, Iraq. Picture: Hadi Mizban/AP

A fire at a newly opened shopping centre in eastern Iraq has killed more than 60 people, including women and children, Iraqi officials said.

Iraq’s Ministry of Interior said in a statement that 61 people died, most of them from suffocation, in the fire that broke out late Wednesday in the city of Kut in the province of Wasit.

Among the dead were 14 bodies that remain unidentified, it said.

Civil defence teams were able to rescue more than 45 people who were trapped inside the building, the statement said.

Iraqi security forces at the scene of the fire in Kut (Hadi Mizban/AP)

The shopping centre, which had opened only a week earlier, was in a five-storey building that also contained a restaurant and supermarket.

The state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that people remained missing. Photographs and videos on local media showed the building fully engulfed in flames.

Provincial governor Mohammed al-Mayyeh declared three days of mourning. He said the cause of the fire is under investigation but that legal cases were filed against the building owner and shopping centre owner. 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,” he said.

The results of the preliminary investigation will be released within 48 hours, he added.

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