A FIRE tore through a newly opened shopping mall in the eastern Iraqi city of Kut overnight, killing at least 61 people mostly women and children, authorities said Thursday as grief-stricken families searched for missing relatives.
Officials said many people suffocated in bathrooms, while one person told AFP his five relatives died in an elevator.
The blaze, the latest in a country where safety regulations are frequently neglected, broke out late Wednesday, reportedly starting on the first floor before rapidly engulfing the five-storey Corniche Hypermarket Mall.
The cause was not immediately known, but one survivor told AFP an air conditioner had exploded.
Several people told AFP they lost family members and in some cases whole families who had gone to shop and dine at the mall days after it opened in Kut, around 160 kilometres (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad.
Footage shared on social media showed people including children standing on the roof, calling for help.
An AFP correspondent reported seeing charred bodies at the province’s forensic department.
Ali Kadhim, 51, said he had been shuttling between the mall and the main hospital, where the victims were taken, looking for his cousin, who is missing along with his wife and three children.
Back at the mall, he waited anxiously as rescuers searched for victims in the wreckage, with an ambulance on standby.
“We don’t know what happened to them,” he said.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said the blaze had been contained and the front of the building was severely charred.
The interior ministry said in a statement that “the tragic fire claimed the lives of 61 innocent citizens, most of whom suffocated in bathrooms, and among them 14 charred bodies yet to be identified”.
A relative covers his face as he waits outside the forensic department of the al-Zahraa Hospital on July 17, 2025, after a fire tore through the newly opened Hyper Mall overnight in the eastern Iraqi city of Kut, killing at least 60 people, according to Iraqi authorities. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)
The official INA news agency later quoted a medical source who put the toll at 63 dead and 40 injured.
