Blaze at Iraqi wedding hall kills at least 100 attendees
MOSUL, Iraq — As they watched the bride and groom start their slow dance, Faten Youssef imagined the future wedding of her son, seated next to her at a reception table. Within moments, however, disaster struck when an inferno erupted that would leave nearly 100 dead in the northern Iraqi wedding hall.
As the dance began, a ring of pyrotechnics machines on the floor released fountains of sparks into the air. As the music played, ceiling panels above the machines burst into flames.
The around 250 panicked guests in the the Haitham Royal Wedding Hall in the predominantly Christian Hamdaniya area stampeded for the exits as flaming decorations and pieces of ceiling rained down on them.
Authorities on Wednesday said around 100 people were killed, with the toll expected to rise with at least 100 injured, including many critically burned. Authorities said highly flammable building materials contributed to the disaster.
There was no official word on the cause of the blaze. But Kurdish television aired footage of the flames erupt from the ceiling over a chandelier as the spark machines jetted fireworks below.
“Flames started falling on us.” Youssef told the Associated Press. “Things were falling down and blocked the way to the exit.”
The guests, seated at long tables for the reception meal, rushed to the exits and the electricity went out. Youssef ’s son tried to pull her to safety as she held her daughter’s hand. Youssef fell over onto the floor, right next to an elderly woman sprawled helplessly.
Youssef’s son tried to kick open a jammed exit door but couldn’t, she said. In the turmoil, her husband was missing. They managed to escape out another door, and once outside she found her husband had gotten out through the kitchen.
“It’s like we were brought back to life, I still don’t know how we survived,” Youssef said.
Another guest, Nabil Ibrahim, happened to be outside with one of his sons getting fresh air when the fire broke out. His wife, daughter and other son were still inside. He and his son rushed in, “and I saw people burning and screaming,” he recalled. He eventually escaped through the kitchen and found his family outside.
With many trapped inside, someone brought a bulldozer and knocked a hole in the wedding hall wall, survivors said.
But by that time, “most of the people inside had died,” Ibrahim said. Fortunately, many of the guests’ children were outside playing in a nearby playground when the fire erupted. “If they’d all been inside, they would have died,” he said.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the bride and groom were among those hurt.
The official said 30 bodies have been identified by relatives, but the rest are too badly burned and will require DNA identification.
Iraq’s prime minister ordered an investigation into the blaze. I
Later Wednesday, hundreds of people gathered in a Christian cemetery in the area to attend funerals of some of the fire’s victims.