Television footage showed charred debris inside of the wedding hall as a man shouted at firefighters.Health Ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr gave the casualty figure via the state-run Iraqi News Agency.“All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident,” al-Badr said.Najim al-Jubouri, the provincial governor of Nineveh, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals.
The fire happened in Iraq's Nineveh province in its Hamdaniya area, authorities said. That's a predominantly Christian area just outside of the northern city of Mosul, some 205 miles northwest of the capital, Baghdad.Television footage showed charred debris inside of the wedding hall as a man shouted at firefighters.“All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident,” al-Badr said.
Najim al-Jubouri, the provincial governor of Nineveh, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals. He cautioned there were no final casualty figures yet from the blaze, which suggests the death toll still may rise.Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.