New details of Karbala fire: 60 foreign prisoners rescued (photo)

In a statement received by Al-Sumaria News, the directorate said, “The Civil Defence team managed to rescue 60 guests of different nationalities while controlling and extinguishing the fire incident inside the four-storey “Al-Ittihad” hotel, part of which was built with sandwich panels and Ecobond packaging materials, which are highly flammable and violate the safety directives issued by the Civil Defence Directorate in the centre of the Holy Governorate of Karbala.

“Civil protection teams responded to the incident, contained the fire and isolated the burning hotel from neighbouring hotels. They successfully carried out a direct assault, gained access to the middle floors of the hotel building, evacuated guests and staff and extinguished the fire without causing any loss of life and with minimal material damage,” she added.

It is worth noting that the cause of the accident was a fire in the generator on the roof of the hotel, which at the same time burned a large amount of operating fuel storage, causing fuel to spill from the top onto the hotel building. The Civil Protection Agency considered the hotel to be one of the buildings that violated safety instructions and referred it to the judicial authorities in accordance with Civil Protection Law No. 44 of 2013.