MOSUL, Iraq — A hearth that raced by means of a corridor internet hosting a Christian wedding ceremony in northern Iraq killed at the least 100 folks and injured 150 others, the authorities mentioned on Wednesday, warning that the dying toll may rise increased.
The fireplace occurred within the Hamdaniya space of Nineveh Province, the authorities mentioned. That may be a predominantly Christian space simply exterior of town of Mosul, some 205 miles northwest of the capital, Baghdad.
Tv footage confirmed flames dashing over the marriage corridor as the hearth took maintain. Within the blaze’s aftermath, solely charred metallic and particles might be seen as folks walked by means of the scene, the one gentle coming from tv cameras and onlookers’ cellphones.
Survivors arrived at native hospitals, receiving oxygen and bandages, as relations milled by means of hallways and outdoors.
A Well being Ministry spokesman, Saif al-Badr, gave the casualty figures by way of the state-run Iraqi Information Company.
“All efforts are being made to offer reduction to these affected by the unlucky accident,” Mr. al-Badr mentioned.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered an investigation into the hearth and requested officers with Iraq’s inside and well being ministries to offer reduction, his workplace mentioned in an announcement on-line.
Najim al-Jubouri, the provincial governor of Nineveh, mentioned a number of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals. He cautioned that there have been not but ultimate casualty figures from the blaze, which advised that the dying toll would possibly rise additional.
There was no fast official phrase on the reason for the blaze, however preliminary studies by the Kurdish tv information channel Rudaw advised that fireworks on the venue might have began it.
Civil protection officers quoted by the Iraqi Information Company described the marriage corridor’s exterior as being embellished with extremely flammable cladding that’s unlawful within the nation.
It wasn’t instantly clear why the authorities had allowed the cladding for use within the corridor, however corruption and mismanagement stay endemic in Iraq 20 years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Whereas some kinds of cladding might be made with fire-resistant materials, consultants say the sorts that caught fireplace on the wedding ceremony corridor, and have caught fireplace elsewhere, weren’t designed to satisfy strict security requirements, and have typically been put into buildings with none breaks that will gradual or halt a attainable blaze. Such cladding was an element within the 2017 fireplace at Grenfell Tower in London, which killed 72 folks, and in a number of high-rise fires within the United Arab Emirates.
The fireplace in Iraq was the most recent catastrophe to strike the nation’s shrinking Christian minority, which over the previous 20 years has been violently focused by extremists, first from Al Qaeda and later from the Islamic State militant group. Though the Nineveh plains, the historic homeland of Iraqi Christians, had been wrested again from the Islamic State six years in the past, some cities there are nonetheless principally rubble and lack fundamental providers. Many Christians have left for Europe, Australia or the US.
The variety of Christians in Iraq in the present day is estimated at 150,000, in comparison with 1.5 million in 2003. Iraq’s complete inhabitants is greater than 40 million.
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