49 people have died and more than 50 have been injured in a fire in a building in Mangaf, Kuwait. Of these, 48 bodies have been identified through DNA test, of which 45 are Indians while 3 are Filipinos.
Out of the 45 Indians, the maximum number of 23 dead are from Kerala. After this, 7 dead are from Tamil Nadu, 3 from Andhra Pradesh, 3 from Uttar Pradesh, 1 each from Bihar, Odisha, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Haryana, Punjab and West Bengal. It has not been revealed which state the deceased Indian belongs to.
To bring the bodies to India, a C-130J aircraft has been sent to Kuwait, which will return today. It will first reach Kochi as most of the dead are from Kerala. After this the aircraft will come to Delhi.
The accident happened at 4.30 am on Wednesday Kuwait time. According to the Kuwaiti Fire Force, the fire was caused by an electrical circuit. All the workers were sleeping at that time. Many people panicked due to the fire and jumped from the windows of the building. Many people got trapped inside the building and died due to suffocation in the smoke.
24-year-old Mohammad Ali Hussain, a resident of Ranchi in Jharkhand, had gone to Kuwait 18 days ago and died in the accident. The three deceased from Uttar Pradesh have been identified as Praveen Madhav Singh from Varanasi and Jairam Gupta and Angad Gupta from Gorakhpur. At the same time, the deceased from Andhra Pradesh have been identified as T Loknandan from Srikakulam district, M Satyanarayana from West Godavari and M. Eshwaru.