Indian relatives mourn the return of bodies of 45 Kuwait fire victims

Fifty people died in the resulting inferno, including 45 Indians, with dozens more hospitalized and anguished relatives back home, frantically searching for news of their loved ones' deaths.

“We hoped until the last minute that maybe he would be out, maybe he would be in the hospital,” Anu Aby, the neighbor of the victim Cibin Abraham, 31, told AFP .

Aby said Abraham was due to return home to Kerala state in August for his child's first birthday.

Abraham had called his wife just an hour before the fire started, he added.

Others sat in a waiting room at Kochi airport in southern India, wiping away tears as the Indian Air Force plane carrying the remains of their loved ones landed .

“It is an endless loss for the families of the deceased,” Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters at the airport.

“Steps must be taken to prevent such an incident from happening again and we hope that the Kuwaiti government will take the necessary measures.”

The majority of Kuwait's population, more than four million people, is made up of foreigners.

Many of them come from South and Southeast Asia, work in the construction and service sectors and live in crowded buildings like the one that caught fire Wednesday.

The fire was one of the worst ever seen in Kuwait, which borders Iraq and Saudi Arabia and is home to about seven percent of the world's known oil reserves.

Nearly 200 people lived in the building and many dead and injured people were asphyxiated by smoke inhalation after being trapped by the flames, according to a fire source.

The bodies of many of the dead were charred beyond recognition and had to be positively identified through DNA testing before being repatriated.

A Kuwaiti man and two foreign residents have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter for neglecting safety procedures and fire rules, authorities in the Gulf state said on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Interior Minister Sheikh Fahd Al-Yousef pledged to fight “overcrowding and neglect of the workforce”, and threatened to close any buildings that flout the rules of security.

Three Filipinos were also among the dead, with the country's migrant workers secretary, Hans Leo J. Cacdac, saying authorities were mounting their own return efforts.

“The priority at this stage is the repatriation of human remains,” he said at a press briefing in Manila on Friday.

Two other Filipinos were in intensive care after the fire.

“Let’s pray for them,” Cacdac said. “They are in critical condition.”

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