Grieving families yesterday kept a solemn vigil in the terminal of an Indian airport as the bodies of dozens of migrant workers killed in a Kuwait building fire returned home.
Wednesday’s dawn blaze quickly engulfed a housing block home to some of the many foreign laborers servicing the oil-rich gulf state’s economy. Fifty people died in the resulting inferno, 45 of them Indians, with dozens more hospitalized and anguished relatives back home frantically chasing news of whether their loved ones had perished.
“We held on to hope till the last minute that maybe he got out, maybe he’s in the hospital,” said Anu Aby, the neighbor of 31-year-old victim Cibin Abraham.
Photo: AFP
Aby said that Abraham had been due to return to his home in Kerala state in August for his child’s first birthday.
Abraham had been on the telephone to his wife just an hour before the fire began, he added.
Others sat in a waiting area at Kochi airport in India’s south, wiping away tears as the Indian Air Force plane carrying the remains of their relatives touched down.
Most of Kuwait’s population of more than 4 million is made up of foreigners. Many of them are from South and Southeast Asia working in construction and service industries, and living in overcrowded housing blocks like the one that went up in flames on Wednesday.
Nearly 200 people were living in the building, and many of the dead and injured suffocated from smoke inhalation after being trapped by the flames, a fire department source said.
The bodies of many of the dead were charred beyond recognition and needed to be formally identified through DNA testing before they were repatriated.
One Kuwaiti and two foreign residents have been detained on suspicion of manslaughter through negligence of security procedures and fire regulations, authorities in the Gulf state said on Thursday.
Kuwaiti Minister of Interior Sheikh Fahd al-Yousef on Wednesday vowed to address “labor overcrowding and neglect,” and threatened to close any buildings that flout safety rules.
Three Filipinos were also among the dead, with Philippine Secretary of the Department of Migrant Workers Hans Leo J. Cacdac saying authorities in Manila were in touch with the next of kin.
The blaze was one of the worst seen in Kuwait, which sits on about 7 percent of the world’s known oil reserves.
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