At least six persons were found utterly burnt and forty were reported missing, yesterday here in Jubail, due to a fire that erupted in a housing compound belonging to a contract company working for Saudi ARAMCO. It is estimated that the fire broke out at half past nine based on a reported call citing the incident then and calling for firefighters. The housing area size is estimated to be around 20000 square meter. It is said that the fire took place exactly in the Saudi residential area whose capacity is approximately 500 residential units. Once the fire was brought under control, six unidentified bodies were found completely charred and forty were reported missing. The search and rescue is still in progress.

ARAMCO firefighting teams were dispatched immediately to the fire location and two units of the Royal Commission Civil Defense for firefighting participated in the search and rescue mission. Causes for the fire are yet unknown and investigation is still in progress. According to an eyewitness, the blaze was horrible and huge and it lasted four hours. “It was terribly big and very frightening,” he said. “Despite the immediate response of the firefighting teams, it was too late to save them.” Another eyewitness commented. Hatem Dahla, the project manager of the Federation of Arab Contractors, commented that the population of the whole project area is approximately 17 thousand people, the main causes of the fire are still not clear, and the investigation continues.