40 Indians die in Kuwait block fire

India's foreign office says that 49 people were killed in a fire at an apartment building in the city of Mangaf in Kuwait. At least 40 of them were Indian.

The fire started on Wednesday in a building where many workers were staying.

A video shared on social media showed the lower part of the building on fire and thick black smoke coming from the upper floors.

Most individuals who have passed away are from the southern Indian states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Additionally, approximately 50 Indians have sustained injuries.

There are also Filipino and Nepalese workers who were hurt.

Two-thirds of Kuwait's population are foreign workers, and the country depends heavily on them, especially in the building and housekeeping industries.

Human rights groups have made concerns about their living situations many times.

According to local news sources, the building housed 196 workers, and some think it may have been too busy.

According to state TV, a "large number" of people were in the house when the fire broke out.

"Dozens were saved, but sadly, many died from breathing in the smoke from the fire," he said, adding that warnings were often sent out about how crowded these kinds of places to stay could get.

Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Fahad Yusuf al-Sabah said the tragedy happened because property owners were greedy and did not follow building codes.

"Anger on the part of the property owners is what caused this," Sheikh al-Sabah, also acting interior minister, told Reuters.

"They violate regulations, and this is the result of the violations," he told me.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Maj-Gen Eid al-Oweihan, told state TV that the fire was reported at 6:00 a.m. local time (3:00 p.m. GMT) on Wednesday. In the end, it was brought under control.

Indian PM Narendra Modi has sent his apologies to the families of the dead.

He said on X, "The fire accident in Kuwait City is sad."

"My thoughts are with everyone who has lost a loved one. I pray that the hurt gets better as soon as possible."

He said the Indian embassy was watching things and working with the local government.

A junior minister in the government named Kirti Vardhan Singh, who left for Kuwait on Thursday morning, said that DNA tests were being conducted to determine the victims' identities.

"An Air Force plane is ready to go." As soon as the bodies are found, their families will be told, and our Air Force plane will bring them back, he said the news service ANI.

Twenty-four of the deaths are from the state of Kerala, and five are from Tamil Nadu, which is close by.

TGE spoke to Manikandan from Tamil Nadu, who was there and said that many of the workers had been on night shifts.

"Some of those who returned to that flat early in the morning were cooking food after returning from work," he noted.

A fire quickly spread after it started, and the people who lived in the building could not extinguish it.

Parents and children in India who have been told about the deaths are shocked.

Umaruddeen Shameer was a driver for an oil business in Kuwait. He was from Kumarakom, Kerala.

A friend who called him on the phone said that his family was shocked to hear about his death.

"He was married nine months ago when he came to visit," a friend told TGE but did not say who he was. "His parents are not in a condition to speak to anyone."

A family friend told TGE that Stephin Sabu, who was 29 years old, was planning to go home to Kerala's Kottayam area next month.

A local church member, Babu Mathew, told TGE, "His father is sick, and his mother cannot speak." He also said that his family had been waiting for Sabu to come home for the event to open the house he had built.

Others were upset because they were desperately waiting for news of their loved ones.

On Thursday morning, Ashrafunnisa from Villupuram in Tamil Nadu talked about how worried she was that she could not reach her husband, Mohammed Sharief. He had lived in the destroyed building and worked as a foreman in Kuwait for ten years.

"The last time I talked to him was Tuesday afternoon." "Since then, I have not been able to reach him," she says.

The news of his death came to her hours after she talked to the TGE.