Sixteen people are dead and nine have been injured in a fire that broke out in a residential building in the Al Ras area in Dubai on Saturday afternoon.

Initial investigations showed that lack of compliance with building security and safety requirements caused the fire, local daily Gulf News reported, citing a spokesperson.

The huge fire broke out in an apartment on the fourth floor of the residential building.

“So far, we have managed to identify 4 Indians, including a couple from Kerala and two men from Tamil Nadu who worked at the building, 3 Pakistani cousins and a Nigerian woman,” Gulf News reported, quoting Naseer Vatanappally, an Indian social worker.

Dubai Civil Defense teams arrived at the site within six minutes of the notification and started both evacuation and firefighting operations.

The fire was brought under control at 2:42 pm, after which the cooling operations were started.

(Writing by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@lseg.com; editing by Daniel Luiz)