A newly-wed couple were among at least 100 people killed when their Christian wedding party venue caught fire on Tuesday night in the northern Iraqi town of Hamdaniyah.
Health authorities in Nineveh province, where the town is located, said more than 150 attendees to the wedding were also badly injured when flames quickly engulfed the reception hall after fireworks were launched as the bride and groom were slow-dancing.
Victims were being taken by ambulances to the main hospital in Hamdaniyah, a predominantly Christian town east of Mosul.
“The majority of the injured suffer from burns and asphyxiation,” health ministry spokesperson Saif Al-Badr said, adding that there had also been crowd crushes at the scene.
In a statement, civil defense authorities blamed the fire to “highly flammable” and low-cost ceiling panels that also released toxic gases while burning.
The prefabricated panels inside the wedding party hall also contravened safety standards, according to the statement.
Wedding attendee Rania Waad, who sustained a burn to her hand, said that as the bride and groom “were slow dancing, the fireworks started to climb to the ceiling, the whole hall went up in flames.”
“We couldn’t see anything,” the 17-year-old said, choking back sobs. “We were suffocating, we didn’t know how to get out.”
The ministry of health announced that “medical aid trucks” had been dispatched to the area from Baghdad and other provinces, adding that its teams in Nineveh had been mobilized to care for the injured.