A wedding marks the occasion when people gather to celebrate romantic bonds of love along with the start of fresh beginnings.
Family members unite while friends offer congratulations to two people who begin their eternal union.
One couple experienced their wedding becoming the saddest nightmare every man can imagine after their wedding day.
The newlyweds now face irreparable sadness because more than 100 people have died as a result of this tragedy.
The earth-shattering event sent deep tremors worldwide because of its devastating nature.
The newly married couple Haneen and Revan shared their first account about witnessing the disastrous incident at their wedding venue located in Nineveh province Iraq. Haneen is eighteen years old and Revan is twenty-seven.
The wedding celebration in Qaraqosh near Mosul between Haneen and Revan turned into complete devastation when 900 guests attended their nuptials at the wedding hall.
The sudden fire swept through the establishment with speed while it enclosed guests between dense smoke and burning mass.
Most survivors recount a picture of everyone’s panic fueled by screams of terror and people trying desperately to break out from the burning hall.
“The bride lost her whole family – three brothers, all of her uncles, and her young cousins,” said Jamil al-Jamil, a friend of the couple, to AFP via BBC News.
“The groom lost his mother.”
Numerous hospital staff treated ninety-two people who sustained injuries during the tragedy although many families maintained watch outside medical facilities for word of their relatives.
Through his interview with Sky News Revan explained the dangerous events that occurred before the fire.
The reason might be a short-circuit as far as I can tell. The beginning point of the blaze was located inside the ceiling. We felt the heat… I turned my gaze towards the ceiling after hearing the crackling sound. The entire ceiling made of nylon began to melt at that moment. It only took seconds.”
A power outage immediately set in just before their dance then the facility turned into flames seconds after.
Various witnesses observed electrical sparks originating from the pyrotechnic dance effects but these sparks might have started the fire.
A guest involved in the accident described to Associated Press:
“They were about to do a slow dance, and then they lit up this thing for the dance, which caught fire.”
Revan immediately took his wife by the hand when he spotted the threatening situation.
The situation made me pull her from the kitchen entrance while I tried everything to extract her from there. Heritage described how people trampled her when they escaped from the fire emergency.
Haneen was still breathing at that time but sustained damage to her lower limbs.
The investigation team exposed alarming safety breaches within the wedding hall facilities.
According to Civil defense authorities who spoke with Daily Mail there was no protection against fire because the venue used prefabricated panels consisting of highly combustible materials which significantly accelerated the flames.
Escape became harder because toxic fumes that escaped due to plastic combustion.
Credit: (Sky news)
The BBC listened to fire safety expert Arnold Tarling discussing the lack of safety measures during the interview.
“There should be ‘firebreaks’ in the ceiling and floor. All wedding decoration items must be fire-resistant together with any material in the presence area. These types of fire accidents must never happen under any circumstances.
The situation became more dangerous according to Revan who discovered the hall contained a single fire extinguisher that was useless.
Law enforcement agencies focused their response to the fire by detaining 14 people including the facility owner and the four pyrotechnics performers as per BBC News reporting.
Some were later released.
During his statement Iraqs interior minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari declared that “Fireworks served as the principal cause of the fire… This was an incident due to divine intervention.”
The main reason for igniting the fire was through explosive fireworks. The fire incident occurred by chance yet it was a complete divine act.
Fire safety experts continue to scrutinize the venue because it shows poor fire safety compliance through its overcrowded status and insufficient emergency exits.
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, vowed the “toughest punishments permitted by law” for those responsible for the negligence.
Meanwhile, the heartbroken couple remains in shock.
According to Sky News reports Revan discussed how the tragedy destroyed their emotional state.
“Inside we are dead. We are numb. We are dead inside.”
The couple decided to leave their home after losing their family as their existence became unendurable.
The devastating situation requires us to leave this place forever. The situation has become intolerable for us to stay there any longer said Revan.
Whenever our lives show signs of happiness an enormous misfortune arises which terminates any possibility of happiness. Faced with this situation we should depart from the place.
The newlyweds escape from the scene of their wedding which reduced to ashes while carrying with them the remains of a celebration that should have brought them love and happiness.
The joyfulness of marriage transformed into a scene of such extreme suffering that the couple could never find an escape.
Feature Image Credit: (Sky news)