At least 61 people were killed and dozens more rescued after a fire tore through a shopping center in eastern Iraq on Thursday, the country’s Interior Ministry said.
The blaze broke out in a shopping center in Kut, the capital of Wasit governorate, south of Baghdad, the ministry said in a statement.
More than 45 people were rescued from the burning building, while others suffered injuries.
Iraq’s official news agency INA, citing a medical source, put the death toll at 63, with 40 others injured.
The local authorities have initiated legal proceedings against the owner of the shopping center, the governor said in a statement cited by INA.
The Interior Ministry instructed the formation of an investigation committee to identify the cause of the fire, INA added.
An AFP correspondent said the mall had only opened five days earlier and reported seeing charred bodies at the province's forensic department.
Though the fire was eventually contained, firefighters continued searching for missing victims.
Videos posted on social media showed distraught relatives waiting at the hospital for news, some collapsing in grief.
One man sat on the ground, pounding his chest and crying out, "Oh my father, oh my heart".
Dozens of people gathered outside the hospital checking ambulances as they arrived, some of them overcome with emotion.
'We couldn't escape'
One of them, Nasir al-Quraishi, a doctor in his 50s, said he lost five family members in the fire.
"A disaster has befallen us," he told AFP.
"We went to the mall to have some food, eat dinner and escape power cuts at home.
"An air conditioner exploded on the second floor and then the fire erupted -- and we couldn't escape."
Fires increase during the blistering summer as temperatures approach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
In September 2023, a fire killed at least 100 people when it ripped through a crowded Iraqi wedding hall, sparking a panicked stampede for the exits.
In July 2021, a fire in the COVID-19 unit of a hospital in southern Iraq killed more than 60 people.
