the essential drama in Iraq. A fire caused by fireworks at a wedding reception killed around 100 people and injured 150 others.
Flames ravaged a banquet hall hosting a wedding with hundreds of guests in Qaraqosh, a Christian city also known as Hamdaniyah in Nineveh province. According to the emergency services, “fireworks” (or shower of sparks) indoors, “highly flammable building materials” and also an insufficient number of emergency exits were the cause of the tragedy.
On Wednesday afternoon, hundreds of people gathered at the Qaraqosh cemetery to bury their relatives. One by one, about twenty coffins, sometimes covered with satin fabric or floral wreaths, pushed their way through the crowd. Weeping women, dressed all in black, could only move forward on either side.
Health authorities in Nineveh “have recorded 100 deaths and more than 150 injured in the fire,” the official INA press agency said, citing a “preliminary assessment.” As of Wednesday evening, the authorities had not yet published a final report; officials had reported contradictory figures. The director of Nineveh’s health authorities, Mansour Maarouf, reported 94 bodies moved to various hospitals and told a press conference that only about thirty could be immediately identified by the families.
“The flames engulfed the entire room.”
Shortly before the tragedy, 19-year-old Martin Idriss was working in the kitchen. “I thought there had been an explosion (…) the flames engulfed the entire room,” he told AFP. He said he saw “three burned bodies of children” and realized the emergency exits “were not enough.”
Civil Defense reported the presence of prefabricated panels that were “highly flammable and violated safety standards.” “Preliminary information suggests that (indoor) fireworks were used (…) which started a fire in the room,” a press release said. The flames, according to the same source, caused “parts of the ceiling to collapse due to the use of highly flammable and inexpensive construction materials.”
Civil Defense has again reported on “emissions of toxic gases associated with the combustion of plastic panels”. “The emergency exits were closed, only the main entrance remained” for the evacuation of guests, said civil defense spokesman Jawdat Abdel Rahmane.
Authorities announced the arrest of three of the four owners of the room in the autonomous region of Kurdistan (North). Early in the morning, police and rescuers inspected the charred room amid a pile of twisted iron and metal sheets whose roof structure had collapsed, according to an AFP photographer. Here and there on the floor a shoe, an abandoned pump, a handbag and makeup products.