2023-09-27 02:48:01
At least 100 people died and 150 others were injured in a fire at a wedding at a banquet hall in northern Iraq, according to a “preliminary assessment” announced Wednesday by health authorities.
At the main hospital in Hamdaniyah, a small Christian town near Mosul also known as Qaraqosh, an AFP photographer saw several ambulances arriving, sirens blaring.
Wednesday after midnight, dozens of people were gathered in the courtyard of the establishment, relatives of victims or residents coming to donate their blood, according to the same source. Residents were also gathered in front of the open doors of a refrigerated truck where several black body bags were placed.
Health authorities in Nineveh, the province where Qaraqosh is located, “recorded 100 deaths and more than 150 injured in the fire at a wedding hall in Hamdaniyah”announced the official Iraqi press agency INA, referring to a “preliminary assessment”.
Health Ministry spokesperson Saif al-Badr confirmed this report. “Most of the injured suffer from burns and asphyxiation”he said, also reporting shoving.
“We were suffocating”
Referring to the intervention in the village hall where the rescuers put out the fire, Civil Defense reported the presence of prefabricated panels “highly flammable and in violation of safety standards”. “Preliminary information indicates fireworks were used during a wedding which sparked a fire in the venue”adds the Civil Defense press release.
The flames caused “the falling of parts of the ceiling, due to the use of highly flammable and inexpensive building materials”, according to the same source. The danger has been aggravated “by toxic gas emissions linked to the combustion of panels” containing plastic.
Suffering from a burn on her hand, Rania Waad, 17, is at Hamdaniyah hospital for treatment with her sister. The married ones “were dancing slow, the fireworks started going up to the ceiling, the whole room went up in flames”says the teenager in a voice choked with sobs, specifying that the guests were ” many “. “We couldn’t see anything, we were suffocating, we didn’t know how to get out”.
???? Urgent
A tragedy rocks the Al-Hamdaniya district – Bakhdida. A large fire engulfs Al-Haytham Wedding Hall, and the injured are transferred to Al-Hamdaniya Hospital, amid calls for urgent intervention to treat the wounded and injured. pic.twitter.com/B1D3fNgDKh– Iraq Press (@aliraqplus) September 26, 2023
Among the ruins of the village hall, rescuers and police officers were inspecting the site by the light of torches and cell phones where iron chairs were piled up in the middle of the rubble, under the scrap metal hanging from the ceiling.
“Medical help”
In Iraq, safety standards are poorly respected, whether in the construction or transport sector. The country, with its infrastructure in disrepair after decades of conflict, is regularly the scene of fires or fatal domestic accidents.
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health announced “sending medical aid trucks” from Baghdad and other provinces of the country, ensuring that its teams in Nineveh were mobilized to “care for the wounded”.
Like many Christian towns in the Nineveh Plain, Qaraqosh and its churches had been methodically ransacked by the jihadists of the Islamic State group when they entered the town in June 2014. The town had been slowly rebuilt after the rout of ISIS in 2017. And she received a visit from Pope Francis in March 2021.
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