2023-09-27 01:25:53
By Le Figaro with AFP
Published 3 hours ago, Updated 1 hour ago
Bodies were piled into a refrigerated truck shortly after the tragedy. ZAID AL-OBEIDI / AFP
Fireworks would have triggered a fire in the village hall. Highly flammable prefabricated panels would have contributed to its rapid spread.
At least 100 people died in Iraq and 150 others were injured in a fire during a wedding in a village hall in Hamdaniyah, a small town in the province of Nineveh in the north, according to health authorities. Health authorities in Nineveh, the province where Hamdaniyah 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 to AFP.
At the main hospital in Hamdaniyah, a small predominantly Christian town located east of the metropolis of Mosul, an AFP photographer saw several ambulances arriving, sirens blaring. Dozens of people were gathered in the courtyard of the establishment, relatives of victims or residents who came to donate their blood, according to the same source. Residents were also gathered in front of the open doors of a refrigerated truck carrying several black body bags, according to the photographer.
Poorly respected safety standards
In a press release, Civil Defense reported the presence of prefabricated panels “highly flammable and in violation of safety standards” in the party room where the drama took place. “The fire caused parts of the ceiling to fall, due to the use of highly flammable and inexpensive construction materials” according to the same source. “Preliminary information indicates fireworks were used during a wedding which sparked a fire in the venue”adds the press release.
In a brief statement, Prime Minister Mohamed Chia al-Soudani called on the Ministers of Health and Interior to “mobilize all rescue efforts” to help the victims of the tragedy. For its part, 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 were methodically ransacked by the jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) group when they entered the town in June 2014 aboard pick-ups adorned with their flag. black. The locality had been slowly rebuilt after the rout of ISIS in 2017. And it received a visit from Pope Francis in March 2021.
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. 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 bottles had started a fire in a hospital in the capital Baghdad dedicated to Covid, and left more than 80 dead.
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