BAGHDAD (AP) – Over two dozen people were injured, including the head of Iraq’s civil defence directorate, when a commercial building in the capital caught fire and then collapsed on Sunday, authorities and the state news agency reported.
The official Iraqi News Agency said Civil Defence Director Major General Kadhim Bohan and some firefighters were among those injured when the burning building collapsed.
No deaths were reported. No information was immediately available on the cause of the blaze. Director of Civil Defence for the Al-Rusafa district of Baghdad Brigadier General Qusai Younis told The Associated Press at least 28 people had been injured.
He said two of the three storeys in the building, which contained warehouses storing flammable materials such as perfume, collapsed due to the fire. The civil defence announced on Sunday evening the fire had been fully extinguished and first responders were searching for missing people at the scene.
On October 29, a gas tanker exploded near a soccer field in northeastern Baghdad, killing at least nine people and injuring 10 others. The explosion was found by an investigative committee to be an accident.
