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  • 2 years ago
The fire that swept through a crowded wedding hall in a northern Iraq, killing more than 100 people, is being blamed on local officials and gross negligence, investigators said on Sunday (Oct 1).

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Transcript
00:00 I'm very happy.
00:02 Very happy.
00:03 Stephen Nabil is cradling a picture of his fiancée,
00:07 one of over a hundred people killed in the huge fire
00:11 that swept through a wedding hall in Iraq last month.
00:14 He was working as a DJ there.
00:16 He stepped outside for a break when the disaster happened.
00:20 On Sunday, Iraq's interior minister announced
00:23 that investigators are blaming the blaze in Hamdaniya
00:27 on gross negligence and lack of safety measures,
00:31 the latest in a series of similar incidents in recent years,
00:35 all said to be caused by negligence, lax regulation, and corruption.
00:41 This fire was accidental and unintentional,
00:44 according to the government report,
00:46 which said 900 people had been allowed into a building
00:50 designed to hold only 400.
00:53 "Drammable decorations also made the fire spread more quickly,"
00:57 said the interior minister.
00:59 "People became trapped by exit doors that were too small."
01:02 Previously, officials said they had arrested 14 people.
01:07 Nabil remembers his fiancée's final moments.
01:11 He's saying she called him on his cell phone and said,
01:14 "I'm going to die. Take care of yourself. I love you so much."
01:19 When he raced back to the hall, he found horrific scenes of people dying.
01:23 He says his fiancée was found later dead,
01:26 sitting on a chair with her phone still in her hand.
01:30 [Silence]
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