At least 100 people were killed and another 150 injured in a fire during a mega-wedding held at an assembly hall in northern Iraq, according to a “preliminary assessment” announced Wednesday by authorities.
According to emergency services, “fireworks” and “highly flammable building materials” were the origin of the flames that devastated the sumptuous reception room where several hundred guests gathered for a wedding organized on Tuesday afternoon in the small Christian city of Qaraqosh, also known as Hamdaniyah.
Pushing, burning and suffocation.
The health authorities of Nineveh, the province where Qaraqosh is located, “have recorded 100 dead and more than 150 injured in the fire that occurred in a wedding hall in Hamdaniyah,” announced the official Iraqi news agency INA, referring to a “preliminary assessment “.
Health Ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr confirmed this information to AFP. “Most of the injured suffer burns and suffocation,” he said, also reporting stampedes. For its part, the Iraqi Red Crescent reported “more than 450 people” dead and injured, without providing a specific death toll.
Fireworks involved?
Referring to the intervention at the town hall where rescuers put out the fire, Civil Defense reported the presence of prefabricated panels that were “highly flammable and contravened safety regulations.”
“Preliminary information indicates that during a wedding fireworks were used that caused a fire in the room,” adds the Civil Defense press release. The flames caused “parts of the roof to fall, due to the use of highly flammable and inexpensive construction materials,” according to the same source.
The danger was aggravated “by the emissions of toxic gases related to the combustion of panels” containing plastic.
“We were suffocating”
The bride and groom “were dancing slowly, the fireworks started going up to the ceiling, the whole room was on fire,” said Rania Waad, 17, at Hamdaniyah hospital. “We didn’t see anything, we suffocated, we didn’t know how to get out,” added the teenager who suffered a burn on her hand.
Among the ruins of the town hall, the AFP photographer could see rescuers and police officers inspecting the place by the light of torches and mobile phones, where iron chairs were piled up amid the rubble, under the hanging scrap metal. from the roof.
Poorly respected safety standards
In Iraq, safety regulations are poorly respected, whether in the construction or transportation sectors. The country, with its infrastructure in poor condition after decades of conflict, is periodically the scene of fires or fatal domestic accidents.
In July 2021, a fire in the Covid unit of a hospital in southern Iraq cost the lives of more than 60 people. And a few months earlier, in April, the explosion of oxygen cylinders caused a fire in a hospital in the capital, Baghdad, dedicated to Covid, and left more than 80 dead.
Source: BFM TV
