Eleven people including two Bangladeshis were killed and several others injured on Thursday when a fire swept through cramped lodgings of migrant workers in the Maldives capital Male, an official said.
However, the detailed identities of the deceased were not immediately revealed
Another Bangladeshi, primarily identified as Taiyab, was hospitalized in critical condition.
"We will hopefully be able to know details once we can talk to the injured person. He is not in a position to talk at this moment," an official at Bangladesh High Commission in Maldives told UNB.
Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) Fire and Rescue Service Commandant Col Ibrahim Rasheed said the dead bodies recovered from the scene were severely burnt, making it difficult to identify them or even determine their sex.
It was the third fire in the quarters, with the second one taking place there two months ago.
Maldives Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid in a telephone conversation with his Bangladesh counterpart, AK Abdul Momen, expressed condolences over the deaths.
Momen requested Shahid to ensure the identities of the victims in detail.
The capital of the archipelago best known as an upmarket holiday destination is one of the world's most densely populated cities.
Officials initially said 10 bodies were recovered from the upper floor of a building destroyed in the fire, which originated from a ground-floor vehicle repair garage.
"We have found 10 bodies," a fire service official said, adding that it took them about four hours to put out the fire.
According to MNDF Fire and Rescue Service, 28 people were evacuated from the building, while nine people were reported missing.
Seven of them were found dead, while two others were taken to a local hospital with severe burns, where one of them died.
Firefighters later recovered two more bodies from the building, raising the death toll 10 before the final toll was put at 11.
The migrant quarters, the MNDF said, housed at least 38 people, and there were cooking gas cylinders placed next to each bed.
President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has assured that the required action will be taken in connection with the fire incident.
Meanwhile, Maldivian political parties have criticized conditions for foreign workers, who make up about half of Male's 250,000-strong population and are mostly from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Till May this year, there were about 100,000 Bangladeshis in the Maldives, but about half of them were undocumented workers.
Their poor living conditions were brought to light during the Covid-19 pandemic when the infection spread three times faster among foreign workers compared with locals.
