Anger rumbles after fire at high-altitude hotel

Anger is brewing Tuesday evening in the ski resort of Kartalkaya, in central Turkey, where the fire in a luxury hotel apparently without alarms left at least 66 dead and 51 injured.

Following this tragedy, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a day of national mourning on Wednesday.

The fire broke out for a reason still unknown at 3:27 a.m. (1:27 a.m. Swiss time) in the morning, according to the authorities, in the Grand Kartal hotel. This twelve-story establishment in this ski resort at an altitude of more than 2000 m welcomed 238 customers during the winter holidays in Türkiye.

“People were screaming, they hung up sheets to try to get out, some jumped out of windows but others had children, friends… There was no emergency exit,” denounced Atakan Yelkovan, a thirty-year-old who was staying on the third floor with his wife and was able to go down quickly.

“There were no firefighters around. It took about an hour to an hour and a half for them to arrive,” he assured the Turkish agency IHA.

Starting from the upper floors, the disaster quickly spread to the rest of the building due to the exterior wooden cladding, leaving little escape for sleeping vacationers.

An IHA video shows customers at windows at night, calling for help: “Where are the firefighters! help us.”

As immense flames ravaged the building, hotel employees helped evacuate guests.

“I saw a father with his baby in his arms asking for pillows to throw his son, fortunately he waited for help who saved them. But on the top floor, two women threw themselves into the void before my eyes, they were killed instantly,” he reported, in a state of shock, to IHA.

“People were calling for help, asking for blankets so they could get out through the windows,” testified Baris Salgur, an employee at a nearby hotel.

“We brought them what we found, ropes, pillows, and even a sofa… When the flames approached them, some threw themselves into the void.”

According to the private television channel NTV, at least three people died jumping out of windows.

It was only in the middle of the afternoon that Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, who rushed to the scene, confirmed the toll of 66 dead and 51 injured, affirming that the fire had finally been extinguished.

He promised that “all measures will be taken if the investigation shows that there has been negligence or that faults have been committed”.

Several witnesses denounced the absence of an alert and evacuation system.

“No alarm went off, no smoke detector or emergency staircase even though there was smoke up to the tenth floor,” said a crying fifty-year-old on television, who had been staying with family since Sunday in the establishment.

Images taken by drone demonstrate the devastation in the roof and upper floors of the hotel, installed at the top of a cliff to have a panoramic view, which complicated the intervention of the 428 firefighters mobilized, said the Minister of the Interior, who came with several members of the government.

The Minister of Tourism, Bakan Ersoy, assured on X that the hotel had been inspected and certified by the firefighters in 2021 and 2024.

But already four people have been arrested, including the owner of the hotel, and placed in police custody, announced the Minister of Justice, Yilmaz Tunc.

An investigation was entrusted to “six prosecutors”, supported by a committee of experts, he also specified.

Tuesday evening, families were gathered in front of the hospital in Bolu, the regional capital, whose morgue received the bodies of the victims. Nineteen people remained hospitalized, including one in serious condition, according to the Minister of the Interior.

Before his AKP party, meeting in congress, Mr. Erdogan also assured that “everything will be done to shed light on all aspects of the tragedy and to hold those responsible to account.”

Many countries, including Germany, neighboring Greece, Ukraine, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, European Union officials and Russian President Vladimir Putin have sent their condolences and expressed solidarity after the tragedy.