Kuwait building fire kills 45 Indians, mostly from Kerala, but what were they doing there?

Tragedy struck India on Wednesday after around 45 Indians were killed in a devastating fire in a six-storey building, housing around 195 foreign workers, in southern Kuwait’s Mangaf area.

As many as 50 people were dead in the Al-Mangaf building fire.

45 Indians killed in Kuwait building fire: Where were they from?

Most of the Indians killed in Kuwait building fire were from Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Kerala - 23

Tamil Nadu - 7

Andra Pradesh - 3

Uttar Pradesh - 3

Odisha - 2

Bihar - 1

Jharkhand - 1

Maharashtra - 1

West Bengal - 1

Haryana - 1

Punjab - 1

Karnataka 1

Another three deceased in the Kuwait fire incident have been identified as Filipinos.

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Worst building fire in Kuwait’s history

The fire, as per reports, started in a kitchen of the multi-storey building around 4:00 AM. All the 195 male residents, believed to be migrant workers, were sleeping at that time.

Most deaths were due to smoke inhalation as the residents were asleep when the blaze started to spread rapidly, officials said.  

The labour housing facility is said to be in violation of several safety regulations. Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister, Sheikh Fahad Yusuf al-Sabah, has accused “greedy” property owners of violations that ultimately resulted in this tragic incident.

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The minister also said that the Kuwaiti government will “address the issue of labour overcrowding”.  

Cause of fire in Kuwait building

The actual cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained, but some Kuwaiti media reports suspect a gas leak to have caused the devastating fire.

What Indians were doing in the Kuwait building that caught fire?

Reports said the building belongs to NBTC group, which is owned by a businessman from Kerala, KG Abraham. The building was sheltering workers primarily from India most of whom hailed from Kerala, Tamil Nadu. Some of them were from north India as well.

Also Read: 10 BIG things about KG Abraham, owner of Kuwaiti building that caught fire killing 45 Indians

These workers, most of whom succumbed to the fire or to adverse conditions thereafter, were working as carpenters, fabricators, drivers, masons, drivers, domestic workers. Some were employed as food delivery riders as well as courier delivery boys.    

As per a report by The Indian Express, among those residing in the building was an electrician who was studying accountancy, as well as a mechanic who had worked his way up to become a supervisor. Several others like them, were in Kuwait, toiling hard away from home to provide a better life to their families back in India.

Why do Indian labourers travel to Kuwait for work?

Labourers in India often choose to try their luck in West Asian countries because there is a high demand for unskilled Indian workers. Moreover, wages in these nations are considerably higher than any job that such people would get back home in India.

As per the most recent statistics by the Public Authority for Civil Information (PACI) of Kuwait, the population of the country was 4.859 million (1.546 million citizens and 3.3 million expatriates) as of December 2023. This was after an increase of 2.6 per cent in their population in 2022 (4.7 million).  

The labourers/worker population in Kuwait represents about 61 per cent of the total population of Kuwait (2.97 million) in 2023 and 75 per cent of the total expatriate population in Kuwait.  

According to the Indian Embassy in Kuwait, the Indian community remains the largest expatriate community in the West Asian nation and has crossed the one million mark.  

Over the years, the Indian population has witnessed a stable and gradual increase, except during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it declined from 1,058,862 (in 2019) to 989,270 (in 2020), the embassy further says.

Indians constitute 21 per cent (1 million) of the total population of Kuwait and 30 per cent of its workforce. Indian workers also top the private sector as well as the domestic sector (DSW) workforce list.  

However, the living conditions for most of these workers is often abhorrent. They have to fit themselves in cramped rooms in semi-constructed apartments or in labour camps, similar to the one in Mangaf that was gutted in the fire on Wednesday.

Kuwait, at present, has over 1,000 Indian doctors, 500 Indian dentists, and some 24,000 Indian nurses.  

As per the embassy, the Indian community in Kuwait is considered “hard-working, trust-worthy and non-interfering by nature. Indian businessmen, entrepreneurs, CEOs / CFOs, doctors, engineers, paramedics, nurses etc are kept in high esteem."  

Minimum wage of Indian workers in Kuwait

For Kuwait, the Indian government, along with the states where the workers travel from (mostly Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab), have fixed the minimum referral wages (MRW) in the range of $300-1,050 in 2016 across 64 categories of work.