Yesterday, the Iraqis woke up to a tragedy after a devastating fire in a wedding hall in the Al-Hamdaniya district, in Nineveh Governorate, north of the country, as an infinite toll indicates that more than one hundred people were killed, while one hundred and fifty others were injured, while it was reported that the Iraqi Red Crescent said that the number of victims had reached 450 people, including one dead and one injured, at a time when civil defense personnel were searching for survivors amid the rubble of the burning building, until the early hours of this morning.
According to the Iraqi Civil Defense, preliminary information indicates that the cause of the fire was the use of fireworks during the wedding ceremony, which led to a fire igniting inside the hall at first, and then the fire spread very quickly, reports Al-Rai daily.
The Civil Defense added in a statement that the hall is “covered with Ecobond panels,” which is a building material made up of aluminum and plastic that is “quickly flammable,” explaining that the use of these panels in construction is “in violation of the safety instructions” stipulated by law.
While the Iraqi government opened an investigation into the circumstances of the fire, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani, declared general mourning throughout Iraq, for a period of 3 days, for the lives of the fire victims, at a time when Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid described what happened in Al-Hamdaniya as a painful tragedy, stressing that It is necessary to open an investigation and find out the circumstances of the accident.
With the state of shock caused by the “tragic wedding” fire, questions abounded about the fate of the newlyweds.
One of the wedding guests told the private Iraqi Al-Oula channel, “The bride and groom are fine. I was with them, but their condition is devastating because of what happened to the people here,” according to “Sky News Arabia.”
