SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
100 killed in Iraq wedding fire tragedy
Qaraqosh, Iraq, Sept 27 (AFP) Sep 27, 2023
At least 100 people were killed and more than 150 injured when a fire broke out during a wedding at an event hall in the northern Iraqi town of Qaraqosh, officials said early Wednesday.

At the main hospital in the predominantly Christian town east of Mosul, an AFP photographer saw ambulances arriving with sirens blaring and dozens of people gathering in the courtyard to donate blood.

Others could be seen gathering in front of the open doors of a refrigerated truck loaded with black body bags.

Citing a "preliminary tally", Iraq's official INA news agency reported that health authorities in Nineveh province had "counted 100 dead and more than 150 injured in the fire at a marriage hall in Hamdaniyah", as the town is also known.

The casualty toll was confirmed to AFP by health ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr.

Badr said most of the injured were being treated for burns or oxygen deprivation, adding that there had also been crowd crushes at the scene.

In a statement, civil defence authorities reported the presence of prefabricated panels inside the event hall that were "highly flammable and contravened safety standards".

The danger was compounded by the "release of toxic gases linked to the combustion of the panels", which contained plastic.

"The fire caused some parts of the ceiling to fall due to the use of highly flammable, low-cost construction materials," the statement said, with "preliminary information" suggesting fireworks were to blame for the blaze.


- 'We were suffocating' -


Wedding guest Rania Waad, who sustained a burn to her hand, said that as the bride and groom "were slow dancing, the fireworks started to climb to the ceiling (and) the whole hall went up in flames".

"We couldn't see anything," the 17-year-old said, choking back sobs. "We were suffocating, we didn't know how to get out."

Emergency crews were seen sifting through the charred remains of the event hall early Wednesday, inspecting the scene by flashlight.

In a brief statement, Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani called on the health and interior ministers to "mobilise all rescue efforts" to help the victims of the fire.

The health ministry said "medical aid trucks" had been dispatched to the area from Baghdad and other provinces, adding that its teams in Nineveh had been mobilised to care for the injured.

Safety standards in Iraq's construction sector are often disregarded, and the country, whose infrastructure is in disrepair after decades of conflict, is often the scene of fatal fires and accidents.

In July 2021, a fire in the Covid unit of a hospital in southern Iraq killed more than 60 people.

And in April of the same year, exploding oxygen tanks triggered a fire at a hospital in Baghdad -- also dedicated to Covid patients -- that killed more than 80 people.

Like many Christian towns in the Nineveh Plains, northeast of Mosul, Qaraqosh was ransacked by jihadists of the Islamic State group after they entered the town in 2014.

Qaraqosh and its churches were slowly rebuilt after the group's ouster in 2017, and Pope Francis visited the town in March 2021.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
UK opens competitive bid for GBP 75 million orbital cleanup mission
UK invests $191 mn in European satellite firm Eutelsat
Bearings Used in Space Technologies: Engineering for the Final Frontier

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Atomic 6 receives 2M Space Force award to advance next generation solar arrays
ESA and Neuraspace develop autonomous satellite navigation technologies
Planet secures 240 million euro satellite services contract with German government

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
London, Paris tighten nuclear bond over US, Russia concerns
Iran says cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog will take 'new form'
Six killed in massive Russian drone, missile attack across Ukraine

24/7 News Coverage
Ancient zircon data reveals tectonic origin of Earth's first continental crust
Autonomous sub explores unexplored trench depths to reveal critical mineral clues
Europe launches first geostationary atmospheric sounder to boost extreme weather forecasts



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.