BAGHDAD (AP) — A fire consumed a recently opened shopping center in eastern Iraq, resulting in the deaths of over 60 individuals, among them children, according to Iraqi officials on Thursday.

Civil defense teams successfully rescued over 45 people who were trapped when the fire erupted late Wednesday in the city of Kut, located in Wasit province, as per a statement from the Interior Ministry. The state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that others are still unaccounted for.

Images and videos circulated on local media depicted the Corniche Hypermarket Mall, a five-story shopping center that had been operational for just a week, completely engulfed in flames.

While the cause of the fire is still under investigation, officials and residents alleged that lack of fire safety measures in the building contributed to the scale of the tragedy.

Iraq’s Ministry of Interior said in a statement that 61 people died in the shopping center fire, most of them from suffocation. Among the dead were 14 charred bodies that remain unidentified, it said.

Provincial Gov. Mohammed al-Miyahi declared three days of mourning. He said legal cases were filed against the building owner and shopping center owner, but did not specify what the charges were.

“We assure the families of the innocent victims that we will not be lenient with those who were directly or indirectly responsible for this incident,” al-Mayyeh said.

In a phone interview with The Associated Press, al-Miyahi called the fire “a heartbreaking tragedy for the people of Wasit” and alleged that the building owner had not implemented the necessary fire safety measures when he converted it into a shopping center.

He said that no government official has resigned or been dismissed as a result of the fire, and that they are currently awaiting the results of the investigation. The results of the preliminary investigation will be released within 48 hours, he said.

The building owner could not immediately be reached for comment.

Poor building standards have often contributed to tragic fires in Iraq. In July 2021, a blaze at a hospital in the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah that killed between 60 to 92 people was determined to have been fueled by highly flammable, low-cost type of “sandwich panel” cladding that is illegal in Iraq.

In 2023, more than 100 people died in a fire at a wedding hall in the predominantly Christian area of Hamdaniya in Nineveh province after the ceiling panels above a pyrotechnic machine burst into flames.

Abdul Redha Thahab, 60, a resident of Kut, said the fire was deeply painful for the community.

“My friend and neighbor’s family, who lived right next to my house — a family of six, the husband, his wife, their two daughters, and two young children — all perished in the fire,” he said.

Thahab said the building lacked fire safety measures, including emergency exit stairways. Residents of the neighborhood had joined firefighters in battling the blaze because there were not enough fire trucks to quickly control it, he said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani said in a statement that he had directed the interior minister to go to the site of the fire to investigate and take measures to prevent a recurrence.