A fire tore through a newly opened shopping center in eastern Iraq, killing at least 61 people, including women and children, according to officials.

Local officials blamed shoddy construction and a lack of preparedness for the scale of the tragedy at the newly opened building.

An overnight fire at a shopping mall in Iraq has killed more than 60 people, according to the country's interior ministry. The massive fire broke out early Thursday in the new, five-story shopping center in Kut, the capital of the Wasit province in eastern Iraq.