100 killed, over150 hurt in Iraqwedding hall fire

 

 

 

ARAGING fire seemingly caused by fireworks set off to celebrate a Christian wedding consumed a hall packed with guests in northern Iraq, killing around 100 people and injuring over 150 others as authorities warned onWednesday that the death toll could still rise. Authorities said that flammable building materials also contributed to the latest disaster to hit Iraq’s dwindling Christian minority. In the fire’s chaotic aftermath, officials offered conflicting death tolls and security officials said they had detained staff at the wedding hall as part of their investigation. An initial Health Ministry statement, carried by the state-run ‘Iraqi News Agency’, said the blaze killed over 100 people and injured 150. Health officials in Nineveh province put the death toll at 114, while Iraqi Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari later put the death toll at 93 Hamdaniya area of Iraq’s Nineveh province, authorities said.

 

That’s a predominantly Christian area just outside of the city of Mosul, some 335 kilometres (205 miles) north-west of Baghdad. There was no official word on the cause of the blaze, but the Kurdish television news channel ‘Rudaw’ aired footage showing pyrotechnics shooting flames up from the floor of the event and setting a chandelier aflame. Multiple witnesses, including 50-year-old wedding attendee Faten Youssef, said the fire started as the bride and groom began their slow dance. The flames raced through plastic decorations and the ceiling started collapsing, she said. “Flames started falling on us,” Youssef told ‘The Associated Press’. “Things were falling down and blocked the way to the exit.” She said her family found their way out through a kitchen, after the family struggled through smoke and flames and her son failed to kick through a jammed exit door.

 

It wasn’t immediately clear if the bride and groom were among those hurt. Survivors arrived at local hospitals in bandages, receiving oxygen, as their families milled through hallways and outside as workers organised more oxygen cylinders. Some of those burned included children. Ambulance sirens wailed for hours after the fire as paramedics brought out the injured. Extravagant wedding ceremonies are common in Iraq, like many countries in the Middle-East. Families often invite hundreds of relatives and members of the broader community, spending heavily on spectacular ceremonies with elaborately decorated halls, music and entertainers, often including pyrotechnics. Casualty figures fluctuated in the hours after the incident.