A fire tore through a newly opened shopping mall in the eastern Iraqi city of Kut overnight, killing at least 61 people, authorities said Thursday as grief-stricken families buried their loved ones.

Officials said many people suffocated in bathrooms, while one person told AFP his five relatives died in an elevator.

The blaze -- the latest in a country where safety regulations are frequently neglected -- broke out late on Wednesday and lasted into the early morning.

The cause was not immediately known, but one survivor told AFP an air conditioner had exploded on the second floor before rapidly engulfing the five-storey Corniche Hypermarket Mall in flames.

A civil defence spokesperson told state media that the fire erupted in the perfume and cosmetics section on the second floor.

Most victims were on the upper floors, while many on the ground floor managed to escape, he said.

Several people told AFP they lost family members -- and in some cases whole families -- who had gone to shop and dine at the mall days after it opened in Kut, around 160 kilometres (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad.

Yasser al-Mulla, who went to the holy of Najaf........

© Al Monitor