AT least 100 people have died and 150 others injured after a fire broke out at a wedding in northern Iraq.
Hundreds of people were celebrating in Al-Hamdaniya in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province when fire tore through the venue late on Tuesday evening.
It is not yet known what caused the blaze, but early reports say it broke out after fireworks were lit.
Flammable panels in the venue may have fuelled the flames, causing parts of the ceiling to catch fire and fall.
“The fire led to the collapse of parts of the hall as a result of the use of highly flammable, low-cost building materials that collapse within minutes when fire breaks out,” Iraq’s civil defence directorate said, quoted by Iraq’s state news agency INA.
It was not clear if the bride and the groom were among the dead or injured.
Initial reports in Iraqi media said they had died in the blaze, with news agency Nina later reporting that they were alive but were being treated for burns.
A photo posted by Nina showed dozens of firefighters battling the fire, and pictures from local journalists on social media show the charred-out remains of inside the event hall.
Firefighters could be seen climbing over the wreckage of the building in search of survivors in the early hours of Wednesday morning, in video filmed at the site by a correspondent for Reuters.
Eyewitnesses said hundreds of people were there celebrating when the building caught fire at around 10:45 local time (19:45 GMT).
“We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall. Those who managed got out and those who didn’t got stuck. Even those who made their way out were broken,” Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno, told Reuters.
Another wedding guest, Rania Waad, who sustained a burn to her hand, said that as the bride and groom were slow dancing “fireworks started to climb to the ceiling, the whole hall went up in flames”.
“We couldn’t see anything,” the 17-year-old told news agency AFP. “We were suffocating, we didn’t know how to get out.”