JEDDAH: A huge fire ripped through a public prosecution building in Dammam on Sunday.
Firefighters battled the blaze for several hours after it broke out at 2 p.m. local time (11 GMT). Nobody was injured in the fire.
Videos on social media show most of the floors of the offices ablaze with large pieces of debris collapsing from the building.
#BREAKING: #SaudiArabia's Civil Defense (@SaudiDCD) teams are battling a #fire that broke out at Prosecutor General offices in the Eastern Province of #Dammam @SaudiDCD_Enhttps://t.co/fHKrGpGKMs pic.twitter.com/Ak5c3EWEqa
— Arab News (@arabnews) September 2, 2018
Lt. Col. Abdulhadi Al-Shahrani, a spokesman for the Directorate of Civil Defense in the Eastern Province, said teams began extinguishing the fire from the building’s exterior.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office said the fire was caused by a failure in the air conditioning machines in the upper floor due to a lack of maintenance work.
There was no criminal suspicion, the office said.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office in #Dammam said the #fire was caused by a failure in the air conditioning machines in the upper floor due to a lack of maintenance work and there was no criminal suspicion #SaudiArabia @SaudiDCD @SaudiDCD_En @bip_ksahttps://t.co/fHKrGpGKMs pic.twitter.com/VvTIud670g
— Arab News (@arabnews) September 2, 2018
Earlier, Governor of the Eastern Region, Prince Saud bin Nayef directed all concerned parties to urgently set up a committee to investigate the incident.
A source at the Public Prosecution Office told the Saudi Press Agency that the branch did not lose any information or documents due to the fire, as all cases are saved on an electronic system and backed up on a central system.
The source said the work in the prosecution services would resume on Monday.