Turkish wedding guests shoot 60,000 bullets in gunfire celebration

ANKARA, July 22 (RIA Novosti) - Turkish police have opened an investigation into almost a week of celebratory gunfire at a wedding in the southeast Turkish province of Sirnak, national media said on Tuesday.

Some 15,000 people took part in celebrations to mark the first wedding in an almost deserted village near the border with Iraq for 12 years. The majority of the villagers left the area in the mid-1990s.

The guests at the wedding fired an estimated 60,000 times into the air during the celebrations, using handguns, rifles, AK-47s, M16 automatic rifles, and shotguns, the Turkish NTV channel reported. The guests later left for Germany, Belgium, and Istanbul.

Some 70 animals were slaughtered and around a ton of rice, cucumbers, and tomatoes were eaten during the wedding celebrations. Around 5,000 bottles of soft drinks and water were also drunk, the Sabah newspaper said.

The newly-married couple received around $300,000 in wedding gifts.