00:00A huge fire at a newly opened hypermarket in Al-Qut in Iraq has killed over 60 people,
00:06including women and children. The five-storey complex in the eastern city had only opened last
00:11week. Videos circulating on social media show firefighters trying to contain an enormous blaze
00:17that spread quickly through the building. They did rescue more than 45 people, but there are
00:22others, we're told, who are still unaccounted for. The provincial governor, Mohammed al-Mahir,
00:27has declared three days of mourning and says an investigation is underway. BBC Arabic
00:32correspondent Sally Nabil is following the story from Cairo. The death toll has risen to 67 people,
00:4067 people lost their lives in this fire and the sea, the pictures we are watching from the scene is
00:49really harrowing. The whole mall has been reduced to just a charred building and this mall was just
00:56open a few days ago and that caused a lot of people to be angry and posing lots of questions
01:03on social media about the adequate security measures put in place, whether or not there were
01:10emergency exits, whether the government has followed the proper safety regulations when building such a
01:21mall or when having to oversee whether this mall is safe enough for the people to go and do shopping or
01:28not. Lots of angry questions and we are waiting for the investigation to find out what exactly
01:34happened. But we also know that there are still a number of missing people and search operations are
01:40going on. The local governor said we are we expect to have the results of the investigation in 48 hours.
01:47But generally speaking, in the Arab world, official investigations, they are not very conclusive
01:52and they are not very well trusted by the public.
01:55Salih Nabil reporting there in Cairo.
