50 dead in fire in Kuwait, most of them from India, says minister

The majority of oil-rich Kuwait’s more than four million inhabitants are foreigners, many of them from South and Southeast Asia, who work in the construction and service industries.

Dozens more were injured in the fire in Mangaf, south of Kuwait City, which broke out on Wednesday morning on the ground floor of the block housing nearly 200 workers.

“One of the injured has died,” Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Yahya told reporters overnight after 49 people were declared dead on Wednesday.

“The majority of the dead are Indians,” he added. “There are other nationalities too, but I don’t remember exactly.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on X late Wednesday that the country was doing “everything possible to help the victims of this gruesome fire tragedy.”

Relatives will receive a payment of 200,000 rupees ($2,400), Modi’s office said.

India’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kirti Vardhan Singh, who arrived aboard an Indian Air Force aircraft to assist survivors and repatriate remains, said DNA tests were needed to identify some of the victims.

“Some of the bodies are charred beyond recognition, so DNA tests are currently being conducted to identify the victims,” ​​he told Indian media.

In Manila, the Ministry of Migrant Workers said three Filipinos had died of smoke inhalation, two others were in critical condition, while six escaped unharmed.

“We are in contact with the families of all affected (workers), including the families of the two in critical condition and the families of the three fatalities,” Migrant Workers Minister Hans Leo J. Cacdac said in a statement.

Kuwaiti authorities arrested the building’s owner for possible negligence and threatened to close all blocks where safety regulations were violated.

The fire was one of the worst in Kuwait, which borders Iraq and Saudi Arabia and has about seven percent of the world’s known oil reserves.

In 2009, 57 people died when a Kuwaiti woman set fire to a tent at a wedding reception, apparently in revenge after her husband married a second woman.

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