At least 16 people died, at the weekend, in a fire incident that swept through a residential building in an Al-Ras neighbourhood of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

The fire, which broke out on the apartment’s fourth floor, also injured nine other residents. 

The Dubai Civil Defence Force said preliminary investigations showed that the fire was caused by “a lack of compliance with building safety and security requirements.” 

A statement by the civil defence said, “Relevant authorities are conducting a comprehensive investigation to provide a detailed report on the causes of the accident.” 

On Sunday, char marks could be seen on the apartment building, home to a grocery store, a smoke shop, and other businesses on its ground floor. 

Illegal apartment partitioning has been a problem in Dubai for decades, worsened when the city-state sees real estate booms and economic growth like it is experiencing now. 

Fires have broken out in skyscrapers in Dubai and other fast-growing cities in the UAE in recent years. In 2017, a large fire broke out at a high-rise under construction near the city’s largest shopping mall.

A fire engulfed a five-star hotel in Dubai on New Year’s Eve two years earlier, with several people injured. 

Dubai is one of the seven emirates of the UAE and has a population of about 3.3 million, of whom nearly 90 per cent are foreigners.