“State of shock”: Kuwait fire leaves many destitute families in Kerala, India | News

Most of the victims of the deadly fire that ravaged a building housing immigrant workers are from India.

From a father of two who was considering quitting his job to a 29-year-old man who was due to visit family in August, two dozen Indians in the southern state of Kerala have died in a fire that ravaged a workers’ accommodation center in Kuwait, leaving their families in mourning.

India’s foreign ministry said Thursday that 40 Indians died in a fire at a building housing workers in Kuwait’s Mangaf town that also killed at least nine others, including three Filipino nationals.

Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Abdallah al-Yahya told reporters on Thursday that one person had died from their injuries, bringing the death toll to at least 50.

More than 50 other workers were injured, some seriously, but their nationalities could not immediately be confirmed by the Kuwaiti government.

The bulk of oil-rich Kuwait’s four million residents are foreigners, many from South and Southeast Asia and working in the construction and service sectors. They often live in overcrowded housing.

For decades, a disproportionate share of India’s Gulf workers have come from Kerala, a densely populated state along India’s southern Arabian Sea coast.

In Kerala, Norka Roots, a government agency for state residents living outside, put the state’s death toll at 24. The federal government organized a special flight to bring in the bodies, said Norka’s secretary K Vasuki.

In a message on The next of kin will receive a sum of 200,000 rupees ($2,400), his office said.

Kirti Vardhan Singh, the young Indian Foreign Minister, arrived in Kuwait aboard an Indian Air Force plane to help survivors and repatriate the remains. “Some bodies have been charred beyond recognition, which is why DNA tests are underway to identify the victims,” he told Indian media.

‘State of shock’

News of the disaster spread quickly in Kerala.

Among the state’s victims was Muralidharan Nair, who had worked in Kuwait for 32 years, including 10 years as a senior supervisor in the company that owns the housing complex where the fire broke out.

“He took a two-month leave of absence in December with the intention of finishing his career in Kuwait. The company called him back,” his brother, Vinu V Nair, told Reuters news agency, adding that the family had identified the 61-year-old from a list of names released by the embassy of India. His two roommates also died in the fire.

The family of Saju Varghese, 56, found out about the fire on television and social media and confirmed his death through friends and relatives in Kuwait.

Working in the Gulf country for 21 years, Varghese planned to travel to Kerala later this month to arrange for his daughter’s higher studies.

“The family is in shock,” said neighbor George Samuel.

Another victim, Stephin Abraham Sabu, 29, who had worked as an engineer in Kuwait since 2019, called home almost daily.

He had visited his hometown of Kottayam “two or three times” since leaving and had booked plane tickets to return in August for the housewarming party of his family’s new house and to help them buy a new car, his friends said.

Sabu’s father owns a small shop in Kottayam while his mother is a housewife. His brother, Febin, also works in Kuwait but lives separately.

Kuwaiti authorities have not officially announced the nationalities of the deceased. But the other dead included three Filipino workers, Leo Cacdac, the Philippines’ minister of migrant workers, said Thursday. Two other Filipinos were hospitalized and in critical condition.

Kuwaiti authorities arrested the building’s owner for potential negligence and warned that any blocks that flouted safety rules would be closed.

The fire was one of the worst ever seen in Kuwait, a country bordering Iraq and Saudi Arabia and home to about 7% of the world’s known oil reserves.

In 2009, 57 people died when a Kuwaiti woman, apparently seeking revenge, set fire to a tent at a wedding after her husband had married a second wife.