BackIraq fire kills at least 100, 150 injured during a wedding ceremony
At least 100 killed, 150 injured in fire at wedding hall in northern Iraq. Cause unknown, investigation underway.
PremiumAt least 100 people were killed and more than 150 injured after a fire broke out during a wedding at an event hall in a northern Iraqi town.
The fire happened in Iraq's Nineveh province in its Hamdaniya area, which is a predominantly Christian area just outside of the city of Mosul, some 335 kilometers (205 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad.
The cause of the fire remains unknown but initial reports by the Kurdish television news channel Rudaw suggested fireworks at the venue may have sparked the fire.
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Iraqi News Agency quoted a civil defence official who said that the wedding hall's exterior was decorated with highly flammable cladding that was illegal in the country.
“The fire led to the collapse of parts of the hall as a result of the use of highly flammable, low-cost building materials that collapse within minutes when the fire breaks out," civil defense said.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered an investigation into the fire and asked the country's Interior and Health officials to provide relief.
Television footage showed charred metal and debris as people walked through the scene of the fire.
Survivors arrived at local hospitals, receiving oxygen and bandaged, as their families milled through hallways and outside as workers organised more oxygen cylinders.
Some types of cladding can be made with fire-resistant material but experts say those that have caught fire at the wedding hall and elsewhere weren’t designed to meet stricter safety standards and often were put onto buildings without any breaks to slow or halt a possible blaze. That includes the 2017 Grenfell Fire in London that killed 72 people in the greatest loss of life in a fire on British soil since World War II, as well as multiple high-rise fires in the United Arab Emirates.
Safety standards in Iraq's construction and transport sectors are often disregarded, and the country, whose infrastructure is in disrepair after decades of conflict, is regularly the scene of fatal fires and accidents.
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