At least 61 people have died in a terrible fire at the Corniche Hypermarket Mall in Kut, eastern Iraq, which just opened. It is believed that eleven additional persons are missing and dead. The catastrophe, which happened just five days after the mall opened, stunned the whole country and demonstrated how bad Iraq’s building rules and safety enforcement are.
The Corniche Mall was developed to show out how well the economy is doing in Kut. There are five floors featuring a grocery, cafes, shops, and other fun things to do. Families and shoppers were happy to have a reprieve from the heat and power outages that happen in most of Iraq in the summer on the night of the fire. But what began out as a normal day of eating and shopping quickly turned into a scary one.
The fire erupted on the first level of the structure, according to Iraq’s Interior Ministry. It immediately spread to the floors above. Witnesses and early accounts point to an air conditioner explosion as the likely cause of the incident. This might have been caused by an electrical problem or the unit getting too hot. But the investigations are still going on. The fire spread swiftly once it started, burning everything that might catch fire and filling stairwells and halls with thick smoke.
The mall workers and emergency protocols didn’t do anything to help. Survivors said that many were afraid and bewildered when the smoke alarms didn’t go off or were ignored. Many individuals became disoriented in the smoke-filled passageways and tried to find emergency exits that were hard to reach, poorly signposted, or completely blocked. It was a brand-new structure, but it didn’t have any of the fundamental safety features it needed, like working sprinklers, building materials that wouldn’t catch fire, and easy-to-see escape routes. These problems ended up becoming deadly.
Dr. Nasir al-Quraishi, a doctor in the area, lost five family members in the fire and told a narrative that made everyone very sad. They went to the mall because there was no electricity in our area. It was hot. “They thought it would be a good way to cool off and spend the night,” he said, sounding a little surprised. The fire started when an air conditioner on the second floor broke. It happened fast. We tried to go, but we couldn’t. He also reported that the smoke filled the building in just a few minutes, thus the stairs couldn’t be used.
One person said that as the fire broke out and the power went out, he saw five of his family members stuck in an elevator. The heat and smoke in the elevator were too much for the people inside, making it a fatal trap before rescuers could get to them. Some victims were found gathered in bathrooms, where they thought they would be protected from the fire but died because there was no air flow.
Civil defense teams were able to save more than forty-five people from the building after a quick response. But the fire was too bad and the building wasn’t built well, which made matters worse for them. Some of the people who helped with the rescue said it was one of the hardest things they had ever done. Without forensic analysis, it was hard or impossible to tell who a lot of the burned bodies were.
People all throughout the country are angry and upset about what transpired. Muhammad Jamil al-Miyahi, the governor of Wasit, announced that there would be three days of official mourning and that he would sue the mall’s owner and builder. He said that making sure the mall was safe before it opened was a “complete failure of responsibility” and “gross negligence.” Al-Miyahi also asked the federal government to make the laws for safety stricter and to check all of the province’s businesses straight away.
In response, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani instructed the government to investigate into the incident completely to find out what truly happened. He put together a group to investigate into the licensing and inspection procedures that let the mall open without the right safety gear and the fire’s cause. The prime minister made it clear that anyone who is proven to be at fault, whether by cutting costs irresponsibly, failing to supervise, or being corrupt, will be punished.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. In the past, fires in Iraq have killed people because of bad building practices, cheap materials, and insufficient safety laws. More than 100 people died in a massive fire at a wedding location in Nineveh Province in 2023. People were quite outraged over this and rioted. In 2021, a fire in the COVID-19 critical care unit of a Baghdad hospital killed more than 60 people. The wiring was broken, and there were too many patients in the room. This caused the oxygen tanks to explode and start the fire. In every case, there were promises of change, but things stayed pretty much the same.
The fire at the Corniche Mall is the most recent in a long line of bad things that could have been averted. It serves as a frightening reminder of what can happen when safety isn’t a priority over money, haste, or convenience. The country is once again in mourning, angry, and yearning for answers as families bury their dead and others look for loved ones who are missing.
People in Kut are sad because there are black flags flying over their homes and businesses. A lot of Iraqis can connect to this tragedy because it was a big loss that could have been avoided. People all around the country are now calling for quick change, open government, and real accountability so that no more lives are lost in these awful, avoidable situations.
