At least 113 people have been killed and more than 150 injured in a fire that ripped through a wedding celebration in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, local officials and emergency services said.
Nineveh Deputy Governor Hassan al-Allaq confirmed the death toll, which may yet rise. The fire was reported to have started at approximately 10:45pm local time (19:45 GMT) on Tuesday night.
The fire engulfed a wedding hall in Nineveh’s Hamdaniya district, where the celebration was taking place. Hamdaniya, also known as Qaraqosh, is a majority Christian town, and is located outside of the northern city of Mosul, some 400km (about 250 miles) northwest of the capital Baghdad.
"All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident,” Iraq’s health ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr said.
On Wednesday, funerals were already taking place for the victims of the fire, as mourning relatives gathered outside a morgue in Mosul.
“This was not a wedding. This was hell,” said Mariam Khedr, crying and hitting herself as she waited for officials to return the bodies of her daughter Rana Yakoub, 27, and three young grandchildren, the youngest aged just eight months.
Iraq’s civil defence said initial reports indicated that fireworks may have been the cause of the fire. “Preliminary information indicates that fireworks were used during a wedding, which triggered a fire in the hall,” civil defence authorities said in a statement early on Wednesday.
Fireworks set ceiling on fire
Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from Baghdad, said that fireworks are a common feature of wedding celebrations in Iraq and that some 1,000 people were reported to have been present at the celebration when the fire broke out.
Flammable material used in the construction of the event hall is suspected to have contributed to the huge blaze, Abdelwahed said, adding that the building did not appear to have “proper safety measures in place”, including emergency exits.
Iraq’s civil defence also reported the presence of prefabricated panels at the event hall that were “highly flammable and contravened safety standards”.
“The fire caused some parts of the ceiling to fall due to the use of highly flammable, low-cost construction materials,” civil defence authorities said in their statement.
The danger was compounded by the “release of toxic gases linked to the combustion of the panels”, which contained plastic.
Images from the aftermath of the fire showed emergency workers clambering over rubble and a collapsed roof with twisted and charred metal at the gutted event hall.
“We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall. Those who managed got out and those who didn’t got stuck,” said Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno.
Another woman also lost several members of her family.
“I lost my daughter, her husband and their three-year-old. They were all burned. My heart is burning,” a woman said outside the morgue, where bodies lay outside in bags.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered an investigation into the fire and asked the country’s interior and health ministry officials to provide relief, his office said in a statement online.
Iraq’s interior ministry has said that it has issued four arrest warrants for the owners of the wedding hall, state media has reported.
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Post time 30-9-2023 07:23 PMFrom the mobile phone|Show all posts
tumpanglalu74 replied at 30-9-2023 05:47 PM
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSNRGUb8p/
Takziah kpd keluarga..
Awat deme bakaq bunga api besaq mcm tu dlm bangunan yg byk bahan api?
Konsert blekpink yg pertama pun ada bunga api mcm ni tapi dlm keadaan yg terjaga, takde renda2 ataih tu utk catch fire.. kalau tak, iols sekuarga pun dah jadi arwah ni..
Maikel jekson pun pernah terkena ledakan api dlm konsert dia masa jaman mudo2.. api terkena rambut masa rehearsal pastu dia kena rawatan doktor masa tu.. babak dlm bideo ni, ada rambut mamat catch fire tu, tingat iols kat mikael jekson..
Post time 30-9-2023 07:52 PMFrom the mobile phone|Show all posts
shida81 replied at 30-9-2023 07:38 PM
Katanya pengantin pompuan mati.. Betul ke
BBC kata kedua2 pengantin selamat tapi ada kecederaan kecil. Seluruh keluarga pengantin pompuan mati. Adik beradik, pakcik2 dan sepupu2 yang muda semua mati. Mak pengantin lelaki mati.
Post time 30-9-2023 05:22 PM
变色卡
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Post time 30-9-2023 07:23 PM
