Indian relatives grieve as bodies of 45 Kuwait fire victims return

Kochi, India: Grieving families kept a solemn vigil in the terminal of an Indian airport Friday as the bodies of dozens of migrant workers killed in a...

Kochi, India: Grieving families kept a solemn vigil in the terminal of an Indian airport Friday as the bodies of dozens of migrant workers killed in a Kuwait building fire returned home.

Wednesday's dawn blaze quickly engulfed a housing block home to foreign labourers servicing the oil-rich gulf state's economy.

Fifty people died in the resulting inferno, 45 of them Indians, with dozens more hospitalised and anguished relatives back home frantically chasing news of whether their loved ones had perished.

"We held on to hope till the last minute that maybe he got out, maybe he's in the hospital," Anu Aby, the neighbour of 31-year-old victim Cibin Abraham, told AFP.

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