More than 60 dead in Iraq shopping mall inferno ‘after air conditioner explodes’

After tearing out of a shopping center in Iraq, at least 61 people died, and a survivor said that after an air conditioning unit exploded, Inferno said.

Authorities launched an investigation into The Blaze at the newly opened Corniche Hypermarket Shopping Center in Kut City, which is said to have shopped last night, men, women and children.

Blaze reported that it started on the first floor of the building before tearing throughout the block and with a terrible video swallowed with flames and smoke.

After this morning, creepy pictures show that the building was completely darkened and burned, the firefighters are still at the scene.

Iraqi Interior Ministry said in a statement: ‘Tragic fire, most of the baths drowned in the bathrooms of 61 innocent citizens and claimed that there are 14 charred corpses that have not yet been identified.’

Wasit State Governor Mohammed Al-Miyahi said to his official news agency that the victims contained men, women and children.

A medical source in Kut told AFP that it was ‘many unidentified bodies’. The savors were still investigating the disappeared building for the loss this morning.

The creepy paintings of the aftermath this morning are still at the scene of the firefighters who show that the building was completely dimmed and burned.

Military personnel, a big night after killing dozens of fire sitting in a vehicle close to the wreckage of the shopping center

The Ministry of Interior said that civil defense teams saved more than 45 people stuck in a five -storey building containing a restaurant and supermarket.

It was reported that the fire broke out late on Wednesday and started the first floor before swallowing the building.

It is the last disaster in a country where security arrangements are frequently neglected.

The cause of the tragedy yesterday was unknown, but one of the survivors said that an air conditioner exploded.

The ambulances were still pest to hospitals until 4:00, in Kut – over 160 kilometers (100 miles) of Baghdad – overwhelmed.

An AFP correspondent reported that the shopping center was opened only five days ago and that he saw charred bodies in the judicial part of the state.

Despite the fact that at the end of the fire, the firefighters continued to look for lost victims.

The videos published on social media showed miserable relatives waiting in the hospital for news that they collapsed in grief.

A man sat down on the floor, hit his chest and said, ‘Oh my father, oh my heart’.

Dozens of people were gathered by controlling ambulances outside the hospital, some overcome with emotions.

One of them, Nasir al-Quraishi, a doctor in his 50s, said he lost five family members in the fire.

In his statement to AFP, he said, “ A disaster took us, ” he said. “ We went to the shopping center for food, dinner and escape power cuts.

‘A air conditioner exploded on the second floor and then the fire exploded – and we couldn’t escape.’

Governor Miyahi declared a three -day mourning and said that local authorities would sue against the owner of the shopping center and the construction contractor.

‘Tragedy is a big shock … And it requires a serious review of all security measures’,’ he said.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shii Al-Sudani ordered ‘a comprehensive investigation’ to define ‘deficiencies’ and prevent further events.

The Great Ayatullah Ali Sistani, the highest authority of Shiite Islam in Iraq, presented his condolences to the families of the victims.

Security standards in Iraq’s construction sector are usually ignored, and the country with infrastructure repair after decimal years of conflict is often the scene of fatal fires and accidents.

As temperatures approach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit), fires increase in the swelling summer.

In September 2023, when a crowded Iraq was torn from the wedding hall, he killed at least 100 people and a panic confluence for the exits.

In July 2021, a fire in the Covid unit of a hospital in Southern Iraq killed more than 60 people.