‘Wedding became a graveyard.’ At least 100 killed as fire rips through party in Iraq
A
fire tore through a wedding hall in Qaraqosh in northern Iraq on Tuesday,
killing at least 100 people and injuring 150 others, prompting anger at the
lack of safety measures at the venue. Fireworks were set off at the venue in
the Hamdaniya district of northeast Nineveh governorate, the Iraqi Civil
Defense said, and an investigative committee was formed to identify the cause
of the incident. “The hall did not meet safety criteria. Because of the
fireworks the ceiling collapsed on the people in the hall,” Interior Minister
Abdul Amir al-Shammari told reporters on Wednesday. “Justice will be served to
those who were negligent,” Al-Shammari added. There were 1,300 guests when the
blaze broke out, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command Spokesperson Major General
Pilot Tahseen Al Khafaji told CNN. The groom, Ivan Esho and his bride Haneen,
are both alive and in hospital receiving treatment, the father of the groom
told CNN. “I hold the owner of the hall responsible for what happened at the
party because there are no extinguishers or safety measures in the hall,” the
father said. Survivors of the blaze were transferred to hospitals in Nineveh
and the nearby Kurdistan region, Nineveh governor Najm Al-Jubouri told Iraqi
state news agency INA. He said the final death and injury toll is yet to be
determined.
CNN.com