September 27

More than 100 people were killed and more than 150 others injured in a wedding hall fire in the town of al-Hamdaniya in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, the Iraqi Ministry of Health said on Wednesday, quoting preliminary reports.

The Iraqi Civil Defense said that the incident occurred before midnight on Tuesday in the hall building, which was made of highly flammable construction materials, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.

The cause of the fire is not yet known.

A witness said there were from 800 to 900 people in the wedding hall and someone lit fireworks. A blaze then spread in the venue.

Initial reports indicated that the fire broke out due to fireworks inside the building and that part of the building collapsed because of the huge fire, the INA said, adding that an investigation was launched into the incident.

xinhua