At least 24 people, including many children, died in a fire that broke out on Saturday evening in a family entertainment venue in the western Indian state of Gujarat, a government official said.

With rescue efforts continuing at the scene in the Rajkot district, the local mayor told Reuters the death toll was expected to rise, Reuters reported.

“Our focus is on rescue operations and saving lives. We will ensure strict action is taken against the people who are responsible for this incident,” Mayor Nayana Pedhadiya said.

Television images showed a massive fire engulfing the TRP game zone and thick clouds of smoke emanating from the site. The entire structure was gutted in the blaze.

A police official at the local civil hospital said some of the bodies were charred beyond recognition.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on social media platform X that the local administration was working to provide assistance to those affected.

“Extremely distressed by the fire mishap in Rajkot. My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones,” Modi said in the post.

The district’s chief fire officer, IV Kher, said firefighters had almost brought the fire under control.

“The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained,” he told Reuters.

Gujarat Chief Minster Bhupendra Patel said an investigation into the incident had been handed to a Special Investigation Team (SIT), and television reports said two people had been detained by Rajkot police in connection with the incident.

President Ebrahim Raisi was buried in the Iranian holy city of Mashhad on Thursday as many thousands of mourners packed its streets for his funeral, four days after he died in a helicopter crash, footage broadcast by Iranian media showed, Reuters reported.

Raisi, 63, was widely seen as a candidate to succeed 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate power in Iran. Mohammad Mokhber, who had been first vice president, is serving as interim president until a June election.

The burial ceremony was attended by Iranian government and military officials, as well as religious personalities.

Flowers were thrown at his coffin as it moved slowly aboard a truck through throngs of mourners to be buried at the gold-domed Imam Reza shrine, Iran’s holiest Islamic site and revered as the resting place of the 9th century Imam Ali al-Reza. Raisi hailed from Mashhad, 900 km (560 miles) east of Tehran.

Earlier, thousands had paid their respects as his coffin was driven in a motorcade through the eastern city of Birjand, read the report.

Eight passengers and crew were killed when the helicopter crashed in mountainous terrain near the Azerbaijan border. They included Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.

Iran proclaimed five days of mourning for Raisi, who enacted the hardline policies of his mentor Khamenei aimed at entrenching Shi’ite clerical power, cracking down on public dissent and adopting a tough line on foreign policy issues such as talks with Washington to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact.

The presidential election has been scheduled for June 28, Reuters reported.

A ceremony was held to commemorate Amirabdollahian at the foreign ministry in Tehran, where acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani described him as a martyr who had “guaranteed the revolutionary nature of the foreign ministry”.

Amirabdollahian was buried south of Tehran in the city of Rey’s Shah Abdolazim shrine, a mausoleum where notable Iranian politicians and artists are interred.

Pakistan will pay $2.58 million in compensation to the families of five Chinese engineers who were killed in March when a suicide bomber targeted the vehicle carrying them in the northwest, the finance ministry said.

The Chinese were attacked in the town of Bisham as they were heading to Dasu Dam, Pakistan’s biggest, where they worked.

The ministry said in a statement Thursday night that the government will also pay $8,950 to the family of the Pakistani driver who also died in the March 26 attack, the Associated Press reported.

The government says the attack was planned in Afghanistan and the bomber was an Afghan citizen. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has denied the allegations.

The compensation was approved at a meeting led by Finance Minister Mohammad Aurangzeb, the statement said.

Thousands of Chinese are working on projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Some have been attacked in recent years by militants who accuse them of plundering mineral resources.