A huge explosion, the causes of which are not yet known, shook the “Layla Chicken” restaurant in the Jadriya district of Baghdad, and its three floors were leveled.
The Iraqi Civil Defense Directorate had issued a statement regarding the incident, confirming the presence of people trapped under the rubble of the collapsed building.
The directorate said that “the civil defense teams have started a rescue operation in the accident of the collapse of a restaurant in the Jadriya area near the Ministers complex,” adding that “there are people trapped inside the collapsed building.”
As the search and rescue operations continue and the wreckage is recovered, there are conflicting reports about the causes of the accident, which the competent Iraqi authorities have not yet revealed, the extent of the human losses resulting from it, especially since rescue operations for trapped people and the recovery of bodies under the rubble are still continuing.
In the latest statement of the Civil Defense Directorate, it was announced that two bodies had been recovered from under the rubble, while others were believed to have either been trapped or died as a result of the explosion.
According to Iraqi press information, the number of customers and workers inside the stricken restaurant at the time of the explosion is estimated at more than 40 people, and it is believed that many of them may be under the rubble.
Although some sources said that the accident occurred due to the explosion of gas installations inside the restaurant, the official authorities that are still investigating the circumstances of the accident, did not issue anything to confirm this hypothesis.
Shortly after the explosion of the restaurant, a fire was announced within the forensic medicine department in Baghdad, which the Iraqi Ministry of Health confirmed that it had been extinguished and controlled without any loss of life.
With the approach of the summer season, which is characterized by a significant rise in temperatures, Iraqis fear the recurrence of fire incidents in hospitals or restaurants, as happened during the past year, when the series of fires, most notably the two catastrophes of Ibn al-Khatib Hospital in Baghdad and Corona Hospital in Nasiriyah, claimed hundreds of lives and left hundreds of lives. Thousands of wounded and injured.
A total of 31,533 fire accidents occurred during 2021, and Baghdad topped the provinces in the number of recorded fire accidents, according to the official statistics of the Iraqi Civil Defense Directorate.
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