A bride’s ‘entire family’ are among more than 100 people who were killed after a wedding turned into an apocalyptic nightmare.
The groom’s mother was also killed after an inferno broke out while the newlyweds enjoyed their first dance on Tuesday night.
Haneen and Ravan Esho were celebrating together when disaster struck, sending hundreds of guests into a panicked frenzy at the ceremony in the town of Qarapish, near Mosul, in northern Iraq.
Terrifying footage shows pyrotechnics placed on the floor of the packed hall shooting out fireworks before a decorated chandelier above catches alight.
Moments later, flaming debris starts raining down violently from the ceiling onto people below who frantically head for the few small exits.
Petrified guests can be heard screaming as the huge ornament erupts and the whole building is engulfed and ravaged by the fire.
What was supposed to be a dream day for the married couple had rapidly descended into an unimaginable catastrophe.
They were initially feared dead but managed to escape through the kitchen, although they are said to be in a ‘dire’ psychological state.
More than 100 others tragically succumbed including the bride’s three brothers, her uncles and young cousins, reports MailOnline.
According to Jamil al-Jamil, who is a friend of a couple, the burns they suffered pale into insignificance compared the fire far outweigh the crushing blow of losing so many family members, a friend of the couple, Jamil al-Jamil said.
‘The bride lost her whole family – three brothers, all of her uncles and her young cousins. The groom lost his mother,’ he said.
Dozens of children lost their lives and at least 150 people were injured in the horrific incident.
‘This was not a wedding. This was hell,’ said Mariam Khedr, crying and hitting herself as she waited for officials to return the bodies of her daughter Rana Yakoub, 27, and three young grandchildren, the youngest aged just eight months.
Another man injured in the fire told Rudaw that the blaze started as the couple prepared for their slow dance.
‘They lit up fireworks,’ he said. ‘It hit the ceiling, which caught fire. The entire hall was on fire in seconds.’
Firefighters continued to search the charred remains of the building as bereaved relatives gathered outside a morgue in Mosul, wailing in distress.
Survivors said hundreds of people were at the wedding celebration, which followed an earlier church service, and the fire began about an hour into the event.
Nineveh province Deputy Governor Hassan al-Allaf said 113 people had been confirmed dead.
The head of the province’s Red Crescent branch said the death toll was not final but that it ‘exceeds hundreds injured and dozens killed’.
Iraqi security forces arrested nine workers at the venue as part of their investigation, said Abdullah Al-Jabouri, a security official who heads the Nineveh Operations Command.
Three people who attended the wedding said the hall appeared poorly equipped for the disaster with no visible fire extinguishers and few exits.
People in black streamed towards the cemetery in Qaraqosh on Wednesday afternoon as a line of pickup trucks drove past, carrying the dead for burial.
Hundreds gathered, many sobbing, as coffins were carried at shoulder height, some shrouded in white, one with a floral cloth, before being laid on the ground where distraught mourners tightly embraced as caskets were lowered into their graves.
Most residents of Qaraqosh, which is mostly Christian but also home to some members of Iraq’s Yazidi minority, fled the town when Islamic State seized it in 2014. But they returned after the group was ousted in 2017.
‘Yesterday there was a wedding and happiness. Now we are preparing their burial,’ said deacon Hani al-Kasmousa at Mar Youhanna church, where the wedding service took place before the evening celebrations.
Father Rudi Saffar Khoury, a priest at the wedding, said it was unclear who was to blame for the fire.
‘It could be a mistake by the event organisers or venue hosts, or maybe a technical error,’ Mr Khoury said.
‘It was a disaster in every sense of the word.’
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