An Indian Air Force flight has brought back the bodies of 45 workers who died in a fire in Kuwait.

The fire broke out on Wednesday in a residential building in the town of Mangaf where 176 Indian workers lived.

Kuwaiti authorities said 50 people were killed in the fire, including 45 from India and three from the Philippines. Two bodies have yet to be identified.

Dozens of workers, most of them Indians, were also injured in the fire.

Two-thirds of Kuwait's population are foreign workers and the country is heavily dependent on migrant workers, particularly in the construction and domestic sectors.

Human rights groups have regularly expressed concern about their living conditions.

Indian Minister Kirti Vardhan Singh, who travelled to Kuwait after the incident, said DNA tests had been conducted to identify the victims.

Among the confirmed dead workers, 23 are from the state of Kerala, seven from Tamil Nadu, three each from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, two from Odisha and one each from Bihar, Punjab, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Haryana.

Mr Singh said the Indian government had organised a special air force flight to bring back the bodies.

The flight landed in the city of Kochi in the state of Kerala on Friday morning, where the bodies of the workers from the southern Indian states were handed over to the authorities, before continuing on to Delhi.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and other politicians from the state were at the airport to receive the bodies and pay their last respects.

“This is a great tragedy for our country. The migrant workers of Kerala are the lifeline of our state. The fire in Kuwait is one of the biggest tragedies that has ever struck our community,” said Mr Vijayan.

The state government and the federal government have announced compensation for the families of those killed in the fire.

In Kuwait, authorities say they are currently conducting an inspection of health and safety conditions in several buildings that house foreign workers in the country.

According to the Arabic TimesAn investigation by authorities revealed that the fire was caused by a short circuit in the guard room on the ground floor of the six-story building.

A senior official of the Kuwaiti fire service said on Wednesday said that combustible material was used in the building as a partition between the rooms and apartments.

Kuwaiti prosecutors have arrested a citizen and several foreigners on charges of manslaughter and negligence for failing to implement fire safety measures, the Times reported.

After the fire, Sheikh Fahad Yusuf al-Sabah, the country's deputy prime minister, accused the property owners of greed and said that violations of building regulations had led to the tragedy.