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News Article :-
More than 100 people have been killed and 150 people injured in a fire at a wedding celebration in the district of Hamdaniya in Iraq’s Nineveh province, Iraqi state media have reported.
The health department in Nineveh put the death toll at 114. Health ministry spokesperson Saif al-Badr had earlier put the number of injured at 150.
“All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident,” al-Badr said.
“The majority of the injured suffer from burns and asphyxiation,” he said, adding that there had also been crowd crushes at the scene.
Civil defence authorities said that preliminary information suggested fireworks were to blame for the blaze and the Kurdish television news channel Rudaw aired footage showing fireworks shooting up from the floor of the events hall and setting a chandelier aflame.
Footage shown on other local television networks appeared to show the bride and groom on the dancefloor when the fire began Tuesday night, stunned by the sight of the burning debris. It wasn’t immediately clear if they were among those hurt.
Eyewitnesses at the site said the building caught fire at about 10:45pm local time and that hundreds of people were in attendance at the time of the incident. Some of those burned included children.
Wedding attender 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, the whole hall went up in flames”.
“We couldn’t see anything,” the 17-year-old said. “We were suffocating, we didn’t know how to get out.”
“We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall,” said Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno. “Those who managed got out and those who didn’t got stuck. Even those who made their way out were broken.”
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.
Ambulances and medical crews were dispatched to the site by federal Iraqi authorities and authorities in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, according to official statements.
At the main hospital in Hamdaniya – a predominantly Christian town east of Mosul that is also known as Qaraqosh – an AFP photographer saw ambulances arriving with sirens blaring and dozens of people gathering in the courtyard to donate blood.
Ahmed Dubardani, a health official in the province, told Rudaw that many of those injured had suffered serious burns.
“The majority of them w
