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MOSUL, Iraq — A hearth that raced by way of a corridor internet hosting a Christian wedding ceremony in northern Iraq killed at the very least 100 folks and injured 150 others, the authorities mentioned on Wednesday, warning that the demise toll may rise.
The hearth 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 speeding 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 way of the scene, the one mild coming from tv cameras and onlookers’ cell phones.
Survivors arrived at native hospitals, receiving oxygen and bandages, as relations milled by way of hallways and outdoors.
A Well being Ministry spokesman, Saif al-Badr, offered the casualty figures through the state-run Iraqi Information Company. “All efforts are being made to supply reduction to these affected by the unlucky accident,” he mentioned.
The well being division in Nineveh Province later mentioned that 114 folks had died.
Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, ordered an investigation into the hearth and requested officers with the inside and well being ministries to supply reduction, his workplace mentioned in an announcement on-line.
Najim al-Jubouri, the governor of Nineveh, mentioned a number of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals. He cautioned that there have been not but closing casualty figures from the blaze, which prompt that the demise toll may rise additional.
There was no speedy official phrase on the reason for the blaze, however preliminary experiences by the Kurdish tv information channel Rudaw prompt that fireworks on the venue could 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 varieties of cladding could be made with fire-resistant materials, consultants say the varieties that caught hearth on the wedding ceremony corridor, and have caught hearth elsewhere, weren’t designed to satisfy strict security requirements, and have usually been put into buildings with none breaks that may sluggish or halt a potential blaze. Such cladding was an element within the 2017 hearth at Grenfell Tower in London, which killed 72 folks, and in a number of high-rise fires within the United Arab Emirates.
The hearth 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 USA.
The variety of Christians in Iraq as we speak is estimated at 150,000, in comparison with 1.5 million in 2003. Iraq’s whole inhabitants is greater than 40 million.
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