Warnings given two years before fatal blaze

FIRE DEVASTATION: The wreckage of the death blaze in Naif, Dubai. (Getty Images)

Dubai authorities issued warnings to the owner and tenants two years before a fire this week killed 11 labourers, the city's chief building inspector has revealed.

The ground floor of the two-storey house in Naif that burned down on Tuesday had been partitioned into at least 30 rooms, with as many as 20 workers living in some of them.

And officials revealed that the owner and tenants of the house had ignored two warnings issued after inspectors discovered in 2006 that rooms were being added and a second floor was being built.

"We were aware that too many people had been living there," said Omar Abdul-Rahman, the head of Dubai's building inspection department is quoted as saying in the International Herald Tribune on Friday.

Abdul-Rahman added: "Too many people are willing to put lives in danger by having people live with hazardous materials and without safety."

Dubai authorities have detained one of the two Asian brokers who allegedly rented the house from an Emirati owner, said a police official.

Meanwhile, more than 400 labour camps in Dubai are thought to be facing closure for failing to meet minimum health and fire safety standards.

The clampdown comes after the fire that killed 11 and injured several more in a 30-room villa complex.

A senior Dubai Municipality official told UAE daily The National on Friday that 40 per cent of 1,033 permanent and temporary labour camps risked closure.

IN PICS: Dubai fire dramas 2008
The tragic villa blaze in Dubai was just the latest in a line of fires to hit the city in 2008.

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