A fire killed 49 people in Kuwait when it ripped through a building housing nearly 200 foreign workers, the government said.
The blaze, which broke out in the six-storey building south of Kuwait City at around dawn, also left dozens of people injured, the health ministry said.
Flames engulfed the lower floors as black smoke poured out of the upper-storey windows, unverified images posted on social media showed.
The interior ministry revised the death toll up to 49, from 35 issued earlier, after forensic teams scoured the charred building.
The building, whose exterior was blackened with soot, housed 196 workers, according to information given to the interior minister by their employer.
Oil-rich Kuwait has large numbers of foreign workers, many of them from South and Southeast Asia, and mostly working in construction or service industries.
According to a source in the General Fire Department, the victims suffocated from rising smoke after the fire broke out at the base of the building.
Nationalities of the dead have not been announced but India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the disaster "saddening" in a post on social media platform X.
"My thoughts are with all those who have lost their near and dear ones," wrote Mr Modi, as the Indian embassy in Kuwait set up an emergency helpline for updates.
India's Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh was also on his way to coordinate assistance and repatriate the dead, India's foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Kuwaiti Interior Minister Sheikh Fahd Al-Yousef said the building's owner had been detained over potential negligence, adding any properties violating safety regulations would be closed immediately.
The blaze is one of the worst seen in Kuwait, which borders Iraq and Saudi Arabia and sits on about 7% of the world's oil reserves.
In 2009, 57 people died when a Kuwaiti woman, apparently seeking revenge, set fire to a tent at a wedding party when her husband married a second wife.
