At least 49 people were killed when a major blaze ripped through a residential building housing foreign workers in Kuwait, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.

"The number of deaths as a result of the fire in the workers' building in the Mangaf area has risen to 49," the ministry said.

Interior Minister Sheikh Fahad Al-Yousuf Al-Sabah had earlier put the toll as 41 and ordered the arrest of the building’s owner during a visit to the site, local media reported.

"We will address the issue of labor overcrowding," he said. "I’m now going to see what violations were committed here and I will deal with the owner of the property."

Local media said scores of workers were living in the building in the southern Mangaf district, without giving their nationality.

Col. Sayed Hassan al-Mousawi, head of the firefighters' Accident Investigation Department, said there were dozens of casualties and that the final death toll may be higher.

Kuwait, like other Persian Gulf countries, has a large community of migrant workers who far outnumber the local population.

The nation of some 4.2 million people is slightly smaller than the U.S. state of New Jersey but has the world’s sixth-largest known oil reserves.