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Agence France-Presse

<p>KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait (<strong>UPDATED</strong>) -- A fire killed 49 people in Kuwait when it ripped through a building housing nearly 200 foreign workers on Wednesday, the government said.</p><p>The blaze, which broke out in the six-storey building south of Kuwait City at around dawn, also left dozens of people injured, the health ministry said.</p><p>Flames engulfed the lower floors as black smoke poured out of the upper-storey windows, unverified images posted on social media showed.</p><p>The interior ministry revised the death toll up to 49, from 35 issued earlier, after forensic teams scoured the charred building.</p><p>&quot;The number of deaths as a result of the fire in the workers&#x27; building... has risen to 49,&quot; the ministry said.</p><p>The health ministry had previously announced 43 injured in the blaze in the Mangaf area, which is heavily populated with migrant laborers.</p><p>The building, whose exterior was blackened with soot, housed 196 workers, according to information given to the interior minister by their employer.</p><p>Oil-rich Kuwait has large numbers of foreign workers, many of them from South and Southeast Asia, and mostly working in construction or service industries.</p><p>According to a source in the General Fire Department, the victims suffocated from rising smoke after the fire broke out at the base of the building.</p><div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/2024/3/1/bfp-records-increase-in-fire-incidents-in-the-philippines-1516">BFP records increase in fire incidents in the Philippines</a></div><div><a class="fr-green fr-strong" href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/spotlight/03/09/23/how-to-keep-pwds-safe-from-a-house-fire">How to keep PWDs safe from a house fire</a></div><p>Nationalities of the dead have not been announced but India&#x27;s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the disaster &quot;saddening&quot; in a post on social media platform X.</p><p>&quot;My thoughts are with all those who have lost their near and dear ones,&quot; wrote Modi, as the Indian embassy in Kuwait set up an emergency helpline for updates.</p><p>India&#x27;s Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh was also on his way to coordinate assistance and repatriate the dead, India&#x27;s foreign ministry spokesman said.</p><p>India&#x27;s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar posted that he was &quot;deeply shocked by the news&quot; and offered &quot;deepest condolences to the families of those who tragically lost their lives&quot;.</p><p>Interior Minister Sheikh Fahd Al-Yousef said the building&#x27;s owner had been detained over potential negligence, adding any properties violating safety regulations would be closed immediately.</p><p>&quot;We will work to address the issue of labor overcrowding and neglect,&quot; he said. &quot;We will detain the owner of the property where the fire broke out until legal procedures are completed.&quot;</p><p>The blaze is one of the worst seen in Kuwait, which borders Iraq and Saudi Arabia and sits on about seven percent of the world&#x27;s oil reserves.</p><p>In 2009, 57 people died when a Kuwaiti woman, apparently seeking revenge, set fire to a tent at a wedding party when her husband married a second wife.</p><p>Nusra al-Enezi threw petrol on the tent and set it alight as people celebrated inside. She was hanged in 2017 for the crime, whose victims included many women and children.</p><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div><div><ivs-player data-ivs-key="e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603" data-ivs-spid="3001339" data-ivs-vid="3056736"></ivs-player></div><script src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/js/loader.js"></script><div><br/></div>

<p>A fire killed 49 people in Kuwait when it ripped through a building housing nearly 200 foreign workers on Wednesday, the government said.</p>

A fire killed 49 people in Kuwait when it ripped through a building housing nearly 200 foreign workers on Wednesday, the government said.

Fire kills 49 in Kuwait building housing foreign workers

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Fire kills 49 in Kuwait building housing foreign workers

Agence France-Presse

Published June 12, 2024 06:07 PM PHT

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Updated June 12, 2024 11:15 PM PHT

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