A blaze gutted an apartment in a multi-storied residential building in Jeddah’s Sharafia district. The fire broke out on the ninth floor of building number seven in Tower number four of the massive housing complex, known as “Iskan” according to the Civil Defense.

“Following the receipt of a report about a fire in the Iskan housing complex, a rescue operation was quickly formed to evacuate the building. The fire had spread to other floors but was put out with the help of multiple teams supported by police backup, the electricity department and the Saudi Red Crescent,” Col. Saeed Sarhan, spokesman of the Civil Defense in Jeddah, said in a statement on Saturday.

Sarhan confirmed that there were no casualties except for some cases of suffocation who were taken care of by the Saudi Red Crescent teams.

He said that Brig. Salem Mautrofi, director of the Civil Defense in Jeddah, has inspected the site and has directed the authorites to probe the case to determine the cause of the fire. The building is mostly inhabited by South Asian expatriates, according to sources.

The Iskan building, an important landmark and the largest housing complex in Jeddah comprises eight towers with four buildings each. Each building contains 17 floors.