Local officials blamed shoddy construction and a lack of preparedness for the scale of the tragedy at the newly opened building.

Photographs and videos on local media showed the five-story Corniche Hypermarket Mall engulfed in flames only a week after it had opened.

A fire tore through a newly opened shopping mall in the eastern Iraqi city of Kut overnight, killing at least 61 people, authorities said Thursday as grief-stricken families buried their loved ones. Officials said many people suffocated in bathrooms, while one person told AFP his five relatives died in an elevator.