Over 100 killed, 150 injured in fire at wedding hall in Nineveh, Iraq
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Baghdad: More than 100 people have been killed and more than 150 others injured in a fire at a wedding hall in the town of al-Hamdaniya in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, the Iraqi Ministry of Health said on Wednesday, quoting preliminary reports.
The Iraqi Civil Defence said that the incident occurred before midnight at approximately 10.45 p.m. local time (19:45 GMT) on Tuesday in the hall building, which was made of highly flammable construction materials, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.
Najim al-Jubouri, the provincial governor of Nineveh, cautioned early on Wednesday that there were no final casualty figures yet from the blaze, which suggests the death toll still may rise, reports Al Jazeera.
“All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident,” Iraq’s Health Ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr said.
Initial reports indicated that the fire broke out due to fireworks inside the building and that part of the building collapsed because of the huge fire, the INA said.
“Preliminary information indicates that fireworks were used during a wedding, which triggered a fire in the hall,” civil defence authorities said in a statement early on Wednesday, reports Al Jazeera.
The INA added that an investigation was launched into the incident as quoted by the Xinhua news agency report.
