Ammon News - A raging fire seemingly caused by fireworks set off to celebrate a wedding consumed a hall packed with guests in northern Iraq, killing more than 100 people and injuring 150 others as authorities warned Wednesday the death toll could still rise.

Authorities said that flammable building materials also contributed to the latest disaster to hit Iraq’s dwindling Christian minority. The fire happened in the Hamdaniya area of Iraq’s Nineveh province, authorities said. That’s a predominantly Christian area just outside of the city of Mosul, some 335 kilometers (205 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

Survivors arrived at local hospitals in bandages, receiving oxygen, as their families milled through hallways and outside as workers organized more oxygen cylinders. Some of those burned included children. Ambulance sirens wailed for hours after the fire as paramedics brought out the injured.

Civil defense officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency described the wedding hall’s exterior as decorated with a highly flammable type of “sandwich panel” cladding that is illegal in the country.

“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 the fire breaks out,” civil defense said.

AP