Wasit official slams safety failures in fire: Ticking time bomb

Shafaq News – Wasit

The deadly fire in Kut was a “national disaster” caused by gross negligence from the building’s management and regulatory authorities, a senior local official in Wasit said on Thursday.

“What happened wasn’t fate—it was the result of complete disregard for safety,” Habib al-Badri, head of the Provincial Council’s Security Committee, told Shafaq News, explaining that the blaze began on the fourth floor of the five-story structure, which contained large quantities of highly flammable sandwich panels. “There were no emergency staircases, no escape routes, no alarm systems—just a ticking time bomb.”

Al-Badri also pointed to critical failures in the emergency response. “Civil Defense teams in Wasit lacked the specialized equipment needed for a fire of this scale,” he said. Still, local responders managed to rescue over 45 people despite the limited resources at their disposal.

An initial inquiry by the security committee revealed multiple layers of negligence. According to al-Badri, the project’s administrators bear the largest share of responsibility, followed by oversight agencies that failed to enforce basic safety standards or take timely action.

“This tragedy should serve as a wake-up call,” he concluded. “Every commercial and investment project in Iraq must be reviewed before another catastrophe occurs.”